TC Insider December 2021

Students from the class of 2023 in the Legal and Protective Services Career Program at Tri-County RVTHS are bringing important public safety presentations to several local area senior citizen centers. The presentations are focused on how to prevent scams and fraudulent practices that target the elderly and become more prevalent during the holiday season.

These presentations will help seniors learn how to identify and respond to scammers. The students aim to prevent the elderly community members from falling victim to illegal practices that could drain their savings, endanger, or frighten them. The students enrolled in the Legal and Protective Services Program independently researched the information in their presentations, including interviewing local law enforcement officers. Topics include Phishing & Identity Theft, IRS, romantic/companionship, sweepstakes, charity, funeral, and grandparent scams. According to the local law enforcement agencies, scams like this are prevalent, and residents of the immediate communities have been scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Through research, the students recognized that scammers rely on strong emotions to catch their victims off guard. They will emotionally manipulate their victims through fear, intimidation, excitement, exhaustion, sympathy, guilt, grief, embarrassment, and love. This manipulation keeps intelligent, rational people from making sound financial decisions. Victims of financial scams rarely recover the money they lose and it can take years for victims of identity theft to undo the damage.

After the first presentation in Franklin, an attendee expressed how grateful she was that these presentations were being provided to the community. After losing her husband several years ago, she fell victim to a scam and understands first-hand how real and cruel these scammers are.

Elder Fraud Presentations will be held at the following locations: Walpole COA on 12/2 at 1pm, Attleboro COA on 12/14 at 12:30pm, and Wrentham COA on 12/16 at 9:30am. If you would like to have an elder fraud presentation in your area, please contact Brenna Ferrick.

Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School welcomed a panel of eight speakers, four of which are alum, who are in non-traditional careers on December 1, 2021. A non-traditional career is defined is by the US Department of Labor as an occupation in which individuals from one gender comprise less than 25% of the individuals employed in such occupation. The panel included an early educator, firefighter/paramedic, plumber, police officer, cosmetologist, engineer, salon owner, and dental assistant.

Each panelist had the opportunity to speak about what and who inspired them to pursue their careers, what a typical day at work looks like, the positive and negative aspects of having a non-traditional career, and offered advice to students who are interested in pursuing a career in a non-traditional role. Salon owner, Ken Tracy, was encouraged by his high school guidance counselor to attend Malden School for Girls in the 1960s and during the visit, his passion was ignited. He noted that in his early days as a hairstylist his friends would ask him why. After he became a salon owner and found success in the profession he loved, his friends apologized for the negative comments they had made.

Many of the panelists noted the positives of being in a non-traditional career. For the early childhood educator, he has found that male students flock to him as one of the only male teachers and seem to find it easier to make a connection with him. The mechanical engineer noted that she was frequently the only female on a team and was called upon to work on machines because her smaller hands were able to fit into spaces her male counterparts could not. The female police sergeant noted that her communication skills and compassion have allowed her to defuse tension during calls.

After the discussion students were able to ask questions of the panel and the freshman had thoughtful queries to help them understand if they would like to pursue a non-traditional career.