Since 2017, the Chicago Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Speakers Bureau has linked professionals representing diverse health careers—from nursing and medicine, to public health and psychology—to career seekers to inform, motivate, and empower them to pursue attainable health career goals.

Through partnerships with Health & Medicine’s Chicago Schweitzer Fellows for Life program and other networks, Chicago AHEC provides professional mentorship to underrepresented students who are enrolled in health career programs across the Chicagoland area. 

In 2020, we provided health professionals as career speakers to 618 Chicago Public School students. During the 2021-2022 school year the Speakers Bureau was offered virtually to 100 CPS students. We are pleased to report that we received positive feedback on the speaking engagement evaluations, with CPS Staff reporting that the speaking engagements offered wonderful information about a range of health careers that students are often less familiar with. In the past year, the Chicago AHEC team spent a significant amount of time overhauling the Speakers Bureau in order to build a more committed group of speakers who are available to speak about health care career pathways and opportunities.

As part of this process, we are pleased to launch a new interactive Speakers Bureau online directory that allows CPS schools to easily search for and schedule speakers.

Visit the directory here!