| Manufacturing and Health Care Academies for Youth in West Central Region! |
West Central Wisconsin will soon commence its second year of Summer Career Academies. Last summer's three Manufacturing Skills Academies served 30 high school age students who learned about manufacturing career opportunities, participated in Manufacturing Skills Standards Certification training, got hands on manufacturing experience, obtained high school and tech college credit and earned a paycheck. This year the program will expand to 60 young people in manufacturing and another 68 students in our first Healthcare Skills Academies. Twenty-nine area educators learned how to bring manufacturing skill requirements into the classroom. That number is also expected to double with expanded career areas this summer. Workforce Resource (WRI) will soon launch of its innovative TESSA data management system. TESSA generates locally desired participant and financial information, while meeting state and federal reporting requirements through a single data entry process. This technology eliminates up to 2/3's of the data entry necessitated by current duplicate local and state reporting systems. The system will allow all of Wisconsin's Workforce Development Areas to greatly enhance program effectiveness, efficiency and accountability at lower cost. WRI staff presented its innovative emailjobseekers.com job placement system at the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) in Virginia Beach on May 21st. WRI, also received, through the assistance of Senator Kohl and Congressman Obey, a $200,000 Federal Department of Labor grant to enhance its regional business services. |
| Getting WISE with Senior Employment in Southwest Wisconsin... |
Verna Janisch is a WISE worker! Pleasant and hardworking, Janisch is employed as a program staff worker under the WISE program.
WISE stands for WIsconsin Senior Employment program. It is a federally funded employment training program for adults aged 55 and older who are living on a limited income. It is a project that improves the lives of lower-income older adults by providing valuable training & employment opportunities.
The program, administered locally by the Southwest Wisconsin Workforce Development Board at the Rock County Job Center, has been extremely successful in helping lower-income older adults improve their lives. In the past year, more than 60 Rock County seniors have participated in the WISE Program with 80% of those leaving the program finding regular, unsubsidized employment.
 "We have been very successful in helping older workers move into good paying private-sectors jobs," said Shannon Moe, Rock County Job Center Manager and coordinator of the WISE Program.
Training and experience are accomplished with the support and cooperation of community-based host agencies. Host agencies provide older job seekers the opportunity to gain new, marketable skills by allowing them to work within their agency, in a limited term training position. It also helps non-profit organizations deliver services and operate programs by supplementing their paid work force at no cost to them.
"The WISE program has been a valuable asset to assist Community Action in our mission to help communities succeed, one life at a time," said Lynn Jones, Community Action, Employment and Training Director. Jones added that the "WISE workers are valued workers contributing to our overall mission. |
| New Initiatives in Advanced Manfacturing & WIRED Initiative Moves Forward... |
 Advanced Manufacturing Training in Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington Counties:
In order to ensure that Wisconsin's small manufacturers are equipped to compete in the global marketplace, the Waukesha-Ozaukee-Washington Workforce Development Board partnered with the Wisconsin Precision Metalworking Council (WMPC), which includes the Tool, Die and Machining Association of Wisconsin (TDMAW), the Milwaukee chapter of the National Tooling and Machining Association (NTMA), and the American Mold Builders Association (AMBA). On May 30, 2008, U.S. Senator Herb Kohl visited the Waukesha County Workforce Development Center to announce that $363,536 would be directed to the Advancing Manufacturing into the Global Marketplace Project, which will build on the success of a two and a half year, H-1B grant that provided skills training for workers at 131 different companies. This project will assist about 250 metalworking businesses in: (1) maintaining a highly skilled workforce, (2) adopting effective workplace practices, and (3) keeping pace with technological advances in the industry. WOW Workforce Development Inc's staff will work one-on-one with small businesses to develop customized skills training, which can be offered on-site at businesses or in classrooms at area technical colleges. Funding for customized training at advanced manufacturing businesses in the three counties of Waukesha, Ozaukee, and Washington will be available beginning in October of 2008. For more information about this project, please contact Program Coordinator Karen Skonecki at 262.695.7883.
WIREDThe W-O-W Workforce Development Board has been a lead partner and administrative entity for the Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) Initiative, which is a federally-funded program designed to position workforce development programs as a pivotal and sustainable force for regional growth. On April 11th, the WIRED Innovation Fund was launched at Discovery World in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Over one hundred and fifty leaders from the private and public sector came to find out more about the WIRED Initiative and investment opportunities available through the $2.5 million WIRED Innovation Fund. In short, the Fund will invest in innovative programs, projects and activities to transform key elements of the talent development system in our region. Awards for the first round of the Innovation Fund are anticipated by the end of June 2008; calls for proposals for the second and third rounds of the Innovation Fund are anticipated soon thereafter. To find out more about the WIRED Innovation Fund, please download the application guidelines available at: http://www.milwaukee7-rwa.com/wiki/show/WIRED%20DocumentsFor more information on the Regional Healthcare Career Fair and Department of Labor WIA Performance Standards click here! |
North Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board's Employability Skills Program Helps Youth Gain Skills and Confidence
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 In Workforce Development Area #6, WIA Youth Service Providers and employers are asked to support WIA Youth Participants in a program to help them in achieving North Central Wisconsin Workforce Development Board's (NCWWDB's) Employability Skills Certificate. The Employability Skills Certificate Program was first developed by the State Department of Public Instruction to help encourage and recognize a youth's mastery of employability skills valued by employers. The program was designed around the implementation of the U.S. Department of Labor Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS). The program requires the youth to work at least 180 hours in an employment setting, doing a paid work experience in order to qualify for certificate consideration. Then, they must achieve an acceptable rating on an evaluation of 22 skills that include basic reading; writing; grammar; math (reading a ruler and counting change); listening; speaking skills; a positive work ethic (punctuality, good attendance and high productivity); and soft skills (courtesy, ability to work in a team and take direction). The certificate program also asks that employers evaluate youth in areas of personal/interpersonal skills, thinking/information processing skills, and systems/technology skills. If the youth achieves an acceptable level of competence, they are then awarded an Employability Skills Certificate. Youth are encouraged to add this certificate to their portfolios and employers are encouraged to give recognition to those youth who have earned this certificate. With an Employability Skills Certificate, the employer has reassurance that the youth being interviewed understands what good employability skills are and has proven they are competent in using good employability skills in a work setting. NCWWDB expanded the program to include out of school youth and officially launched the Employability Skills Program in 2003. In its success, NCWWDB has awarded Employability Skills Certificates to 190 qualifying youth throughout WDA 6's nine-county region. For more information regarding NCWWDB's Employability Skills Certificate Program contact NCWWDB's WIA Program Coordinator, Jane Spencer at jspencer@ncwwdb.org or 715-422-4701. Visit NCWWDB at www.ncwwdb.org. |
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