Easton, MD — Rivers & Roads Consulting recently facilitated a series of community conversations across Maryland’s Mid-Shore to support Introduction to Careers in Healthcare (ITCH) and help connect students, families, educators, employers, and community partners around a shared goal: building the region’s future healthcare workforce.
The sessions were held in Kent, Queen Anne’s, Talbot, Caroline, and Dorchester counties and focused on raising awareness of healthcare career pathways, scholarship opportunities, ITCH programs, and the broader network of resources available to local students and families.
ITCH is a nonprofit organization that introduces youth to healthcare careers through hands-on learning, career exploration, mentoring, shadowing, and partnerships with schools, healthcare providers, and community organizations. The community conversations helped participants see how those opportunities fit into a larger regional effort to “grow our own” healthcare workforce on the Eastern Shore.
The sessions brought together parents, students, healthcare professionals, school systems, workforce partners, economic development leaders, libraries, nonprofit organizations, and employers. Each conversation was designed to help participants understand the magnitude of the rural healthcare workforce shortage, recognize the work already happening in each county, identify gaps and opportunities, and see how individual programs connect into one coordinated ecosystem.
“Every family on Maryland’s Eastern Shore has been touched by healthcare,” said Chris Wheedleton, Senior Consultant at Rivers & Roads Consulting. “These conversations helped people see that everyone has a role in ensuring there will be healthcare professionals here for the next generation. ITCH is creating real pathways for students, but those pathways become stronger when schools, employers, families, and community partners are connected and moving in the same direction.”
Rivers & Roads led the design and facilitation of the sessions, helping ITCH create a format that was both informative and participatory. Each session included discussion of regional healthcare workforce needs, partner perspectives, an overview of the Eastern Shore healthcare ecosystem, information about ITCH and University of Maryland rural health pathway opportunities, and a facilitated community conversation.
The goal was to create a shared conversation about how local communities can help students discover healthcare careers earlier, connect with mentors and hands-on experiences, access educational and scholarship pathways, and ultimately return to serve the communities they call home.
Across the five sessions, participants discussed workforce needs, student interests, mentorship opportunities, transportation challenges, communication gaps, and the importance of helping families understand that healthcare careers extend far beyond doctors and nurses. The conversations also surfaced a clear theme: many strong programs and partners already exist, but students and families need clearer pathways to find, understand, and access them.
“These sessions helped us listen, learn, and connect the dots,” Wheedleton added. “There is incredible work already happening across the Mid-Shore. The opportunity now is to keep building the infrastructure underneath it so students do not fall through the cracks and partners can see how their work fits into a larger pathway.”
The community conversations also helped ITCH expand awareness of its Career Clubs, which provide students with hands-on exposure to healthcare careers. Through Career Clubs, students can explore different healthcare fields, meet professionals, experience healthcare settings, and begin identifying areas of interest before pursuing shadowing, mentoring, or additional pathway opportunities.
The sessions also highlighted scholarship and rural health pathway resources connected to the University of Maryland and other regional partners. For Eastern Shore students interested in healthcare, these opportunities represent a chance to connect local talent with future careers in medicine, nursing, behavioral health, allied health, and other healthcare-related fields.
For Rivers & Roads, the engagement reflects the firm’s broader role in helping mission-driven organizations move from ideas to implementation. The firm works alongside ITCH to strengthen program coordination, partner alignment, communications, fundraising capacity, and long-term organizational systems.
By facilitating these conversations across all five Mid-Shore counties, Rivers & Roads helped ITCH build momentum around a stronger regional framework for collaboration — one that connects students to opportunity, supports families, responds to employer needs, and strengthens the future of healthcare on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
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Rivers & Roads Consulting helps nonprofits, workforce partners, schools, employers, and community leaders turn shared challenges into coordinated action. From facilitation and stakeholder engagement to program design, communications, and implementation support, we help communities build the systems needed to connect people with opportunity and strengthen the workforce of tomorrow.
