SkillsUSA
SkillsUSA is a national nonprofit organization in the United States that serves students enrolled in career and technical education (CTE) programs. It was formerly known as the Vocational Industrial Clubs of America (VICA) and changed its name to SkillsUSA in 2004.
SkillsUSA aims to empower and prepare students for careers in trade, technical, and skilled service occupations. It provides opportunities for students to develop leadership, teamwork, and professional skills through various activities, competitions, and industry partnerships. The organization offers a range of programs, including local, state, and national competitions, leadership development events, community service projects, and scholarships.
SkillsUSA operates through a network of chapters in high schools, colleges, and technical schools across the United States. The organization helps students build technical and employability skills, fosters a sense of civic responsibility, and encourages lifelong learning. It also promotes the value of CTE and advocates for the importance of a skilled workforce in the country.
Representing nearly 400,000 career and technical education students and teachers, SkillsUSA chapters thrive in middle schools, high schools and college/postsecondary institutions nationwide. Our mission is accomplished through the SkillsUSA Framework of Personal Skills, Workplace Skills and Technical Skills Grounded in Academics, which is integrated into classroom curriculum.
Through the Framework, SkillsUSA students hone their hands-on skills against current industry standards in more than 130 occupational areas, from 3-D Animation to Welding and nearly everything in between. At the same time, they develop the transformative career-readiness skills — teamwork, communication, professionalism, leadership and more — that fuel career and life success.
A vital solution to the ongoing skills gap, where more highly skilled jobs are available than skilled professionals ready to fill them, SkillsUSA has served more than 14.6 million diverse, difference-making members since 1965.
SkillsUSA Framework
SkillsUSA’s mission is accomplished through the SkillsUSA Framework of Personal Skills, Workplace Skills and Technical Skills Grounded in Academics. The foundation for everything we do, the Framework is the blueprint for career-readiness. It’s a common language for students to explain to their peers, employers, school administrators and parents what they gain from SkillsUSA.
A total of 17 “Essential Elements” are divided among the Framework’s three components. What’s an Essential Element? It’s a specific skill identified as crucial to success by the more than 1,000 industry partners who helped create the Framework.
The SkillsUSA Framework illustrates how students fulfill the mission of the organization: to empower members to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.
What it does:
1. Provides a common language for students to articulate what they gain from SkillsUSA participation to employers, school administrators, parents and other students.
2. Assesses student skill development along a learning continuum of awareness, demonstration and mastery.
3. Creates a vision for SkillsUSA programs at the local, state and national levels to ensure quality student-led experiences that build skills in all members.
Why it works:
1. Empowers every student to achieve career success.
2. Delivers a skill set demanded by business and industry but lacking in many employees today.
3. Ensures that every student member receives a consistent and specific skill set.
Nationwide Impact:
A student who once hid quietly in the back of the class finds a confidence he never knew he had … and now will never lose. Another, once unsure of her future goals, discovers a passion for a specific skill that will lead to a fulfilling, in-demand career. A teacher, struggling to provide students with real-world connections to their classroom, transforms his curriculum into an engaging model of a high-functioning workplace. An industry representative, desperate for entry-level employees to meet her company’s growing needs, taps into a talent pipeline of career-ready applicants ready to bridge that skills gap. These moments — and so many more — happen every day across our nation thanks to SkillsUSA involvement.
SkillsUSA changes classrooms. SkillsUSA changes workplaces. SkillsUSA changes lives.
MEMBER RESOURCES
SkillsUSA is committed to providing our members with the resources they need to excel both in and outside the classroom. Here you’ll find a wealth of valuable tools, information and opportunities that will enhance your SkillsUSA experience while nurturing personal and professional success.
Join SkillsUSA
There has never been a better time to be skilled than right now. There has never been a better time to be career ready than right now. And there has never been a better time to be a student or professional member of SkillsUSA — America’s proud champion of the skilled trades — than right now. Whether you’re a current student or teacher, a parent or a SkillsUSA alumni, learn more about what SkillsUSA involvement can mean for you … and for us. SkillsUSA Nation is ready to welcome you.
Become a Member
No matter who you are, no matter where you’re from, you’ve got what it takes to be a SkillsUSA champion. Join us, because there’s never been a better time to be skilled.
Support SkillsUSA
Without the support of our partners, SkillsUSA’s vital mission of empowering students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members could never be accomplished. Learn more about the why’s and how’s of supporting SkillsUSA, and help us shape a future we can all be proud of: a future set in skills.
Partner with SkillsUSA
SkillsUSA connects education with industry to ensure the future skilled workforce our nation depends on. Our partners influence curriculum and tap into a verified talent pipeline that’s closing the skills gap every single day.
Donate
SkillsUSA does more than build skills: SkillsUSA changes lives. When you donate to SkillsUSA, so do you.
Contact the SkillsUSA Customer Care Team!
Team members are ready to answer your questions on how to start a new chapter, engage chapter members and strengthen an existing chapter — you name it, they are ready to tackle it! Agents are on call on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from
8 a.m. – 5 p.m. (ET), and Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. – 7 p.m. (ET).
PHONE (TOLL FREE): 844-875-4557
EMAIL: customercare@skillsusa.org
