The government for Jefferson County reports that as of July 2020 7.2% of the population in Louisville is foreign born. The immigrant and refugee community Kentucky continues to grow, and Kentucky ranked fifth in the US for refugee and immigrant settlement. Many of the immigrants and refugees coming into Jefferson County have children. JCPS is the largest school system in Kentucky and the 29^th largest in the U.S. 81 percent of students in Jefferson County attend a JCPS school one of them being the JCPS Newcomer Academy. 

The students attending the Newcomer Academy are typically in their first or second year of instruction in a U.S. school. They are usually at the beginning levels of English proficiency and may have had limited or interrupted education experiences in their native countries. The Newcomer Academy has an 85% graduation rate. Many of the students that attend the Newcomer Academy are first generation students. KSU's Cooperative Extension Community Resource Development program in Jefferson County partnered with the Family Resource Youth Service Coordinator (FRYSC) at Newcomer Academy to provide college and career readiness to 30 students that were in the process of transitioning to an ESL High School or getting ready to graduate. This program helped to expose them to different career options and paths they could seek after high school and help to reduce the dropout rate.  

The program included 5 sessions with the objective of providing basic insights to different terminology relating to college and career readiness, analyzing their interest, and matching them with a career, researching what options are available for them, and constructing resumes and elevator speeches that they can use when applying for apprenticeships, internships, magnet programs, or summer jobs. 

All written educational materials used were translated to Spanish, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, French, and Arabic. Additional language accommodations were made by utilizing interpreting services as needed. As a result of participating in the Career's Program, 30 students were able to complete all program activities and 20 of them were able to successfully map out their career path outline. This included but was not limited to identifying their career interest, researching the educational requirements needed to fulfill it, researching financial aid, researching the school that offered their desired program, and creating an overall outline that would help guide them in the next steps they needed to take to fulfill this interest.

The other 10 students were still exploring their options. Most had ideas of what they wanted to pursuit after high school, whether it was a certificate program, trade school, policy academy, college/university, or joining the armed forces. For our last session we had a panel of representatives from KYSU speak to the students about their personal career and educational paths and the work that they do. The students were shown how to navigate the KYSU website and request campus tours. Research shows that students who map a career path interest tend to engage and are more likely to complete it, which leads to positive financial impacts for themselves and their community.