Montreal Children's Hospital apprenticeship program builds confidence in teens facing barriers

The Pediatric-Adult Transition Hub (PATH-ÉTAP) at Montreal Children's Hospital is running its second year of a free two-week apprenticeship program designed to help young people aged 14 to 18prepare for the transition to adulthood.

The program, which runs through August 21, focuses on teens who have faced barriers related to health, disability, or interrupted education. Participants work in real hospital roles — at the library, reception, patient support — gaining practical work-readiness skills and confidence they often lack.

Nathan Renaud Beaudin, a program participant apprenticing at the hospital library, said the experience has been transformative. "Working at the hospital is very good because you can help people, you feel like you help people to be good," he said. "If I have one job in my life, I'm gonna work here."

Elisa Nguyen, a transition consultant at PATH-ÉTAP, noted that participants show measurable growth over the two weeks. "They develop the kind of confidence and the skills in our apprenticeship program," she said. "Last year, a lot of the teens gave feedback that they felt a lot more confident in doing simple work readiness skills like sending an email. And even the professional allies that were following them had really seen how they grew in the short span of the two weeks."

Dr. Gabriel Kuper, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon resident at the Montreal University Hospital Centre, shared his own story with program participants. He dropped out of high school at 16 to work full-time, believing post-secondary education was beyond reach. Years later, at 29, he began medical school — work he described as grueling but ultimately worth it. "I felt very lost when I was at that age," he told the teens. "You don't have any experience because all you know is contained to your house, in your school, and then the activities you do outside of them."

He offered them a central lesson: "It's so easy to compare yourself to other people, like I did a lot of the time when I was younger, but to realize that you're on your own journey and that there's no one right path to get there."

The program is funded by the Children's Hospital Foundation and its donors. The source does not specify how many teens participated in the first year or enrollment numbers for this year's cohort.