The Jewish Healthcare Foundation and the United Way of Allegheny County announced a new initiative yesterday aimed at exposing at-risk middle school students to careers in the health care industry.

The program, called the Pathways to Health Careers Fellowship, will be funded with $200,000 from the foundation and $150,000 from the United Way.

"The issue is, the kids don't see the relevance of school today -- they don't get what they're supposed to be getting from high school," said United Way President Robert Nelkin. "The idea is to get to the middle school kids before they get to the point where they say, 'This doesn't mean anything to me.' "

Youth development groups will compete to be part of the fellowship, and the funds will be used to train youth development leaders and develop after-school programs to help students identify career paths.

The program should be under way by the start of the school year in September and should serve hundreds of students, said Mr. Nelkin.

Dave Malone, who serves on the board of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, said that 150 businesses have signed up to get students involved via tours, education programs or internships.

"We want our kids to talk about their careers at a younger age," he said.

There is hot demand in the region for jobs such as radiology technologist, laboratory technician and perfusionist -- jobs with decent starting salaries and clear career advancement paths -- but students often don't know that those jobs exist, said Karen Wolk Feinstein, chief executive officer of the Jewish Healthcare Foundation.

The partnership between business, youth development groups and the education sector is important because the schools might not know exactly where they are falling short.

"It's an important triangle," she said. "The schools are not going to get there alone."