We have an amazing show today, we have a very special guest, Matthew Bradley from OYAP. Matt works for the TDSB for the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program Department. Before OYAP he was a carpentry teacher, before that he was carpenter, before that he was a cabinet maker, and from leaving high school Matt went to study philosophy in university and not really knowing why he did that. LOL.

Matt began his career in finance in the UK but working in finance wasn’t satisfying. Left London and moved to Calgary and transitioned from finance to web, and all of this relates to his construction path. A failure in the web allowed Matthew to be packaged out and use that money to study cabinet making at Humber College.

Now Matthew began his construction career, working on all sorts of projects and learning so much more. From there with the help of his wife who discovered teaching and went through the programs to be able to teach. Matt has gotten a very good perspective on tradespeople getting in, staying in and thriving in the construction industry. We discuss the entire program and how to find the right apprentice for the right employer and it’s truly the employers that OYAP needs more of, they have plenty of students with the desire to work.

We discuss taking the students on after the coop period and making them your employee. The students are PPE prepared and aware, they arrive on site ready and safe. They are informed of the latest tools and toys but they need a jobsite to keep learning. All of this is funded by the Ministry of Labour Training and Skills Development, one great thing the MOL is doing for construction. A recent approval by the MOL are construction coaches, this is an amazing new platform for all students.

There are 144 different trades that these students can study for, we typically know about the most popular ones but there are so many more. We discuss the Step In Construction program, a hugely successful program within OYAP. So much to learn about the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program and I am sure Matt will be back one day. Watch for Jim and Manny to do more work with OYAP.

Thank you so much Matt for shining a lot of light on teaching, apprenticeships, the construction industry and more. Really appreciate it. Find Matt at www.oyaptdsb.com and oyap.com is the provincial site www.oyaptdsb.com/employersmatthew.bradley@tdsb.on.ca 647 467-9744 and on social IG and Twitter @tdsboyap

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