| Explore Your Future |
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Explore Your Future is the new name for LSCA's Outreach Programs: BioExplorations and ExploreYourFuture.org.
BioExplorations , a joint initiative of the BioScience Partnership fosters the school-business connection to bring life science professionals into the classroom. Students are provided with an understanding of education, training and technical skills needed to embark on a career in the life sciences. This initiative is supported in part by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry.
ExploreYourFuture.org is a free online career exploration tool. |
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Board of Directors
Matthew Schure, Ph.D., Chair of the Board, Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Patricia Ryan Audet, Pharm. D., University of Sciences in Philadelphia
Kenneth J. Braithwaite, II, Delaware Valley Healthcare Council
Patricia A. Coulter, Urban League of Philadelphia
Robert E. Croner, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Stephen M. Curtis, Ph.D., Past Chair of the Board, Community College of Philadelphia
Joseph M. DiMino, D.O., Montgomery County Health Department
Cheryl Feldman, District Council 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund
Sallie A. Glickman, Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board
Richard L. Jones, Jr., FACHE, Past Chair of the Board, Abington Memorial Hospital (Retired)
Hugh J. Lavery,Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Inc.
Marvin Mashner, ACTS Retirement-Life Communities, Inc.
Kathleen M. McCauley, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
Barbara A. Miller, Bucks County Community College
Martha Jean Minniti, SNI Companies, Inc.
Kathleen Owens, Ph.D.,Gwynedd-Mercy College
Jerome S. Parker, Ph.D.,Delaware County Community College
Linda Rehfuss, Ph.D., Montgomery County Community College
Karen Wiley Sandler, Ph.D., Penn State University Abington
Alan Slobojan, Ed.D., Chester County Intermediate Unit
Shelly Urofsky, Holy Redeemer Health Systems
Andrew W. Wigglesworth, TRG Healthcare, LLC
Stephanie A. Zarus, Pharm.D., University of Sciences in Philadelphia
Eugene Zegar, Crozer-Keystone Medical System
Workforce Investment Boards
Elizabeth Walsh, Bucks County Office of Employment and Training
Patrick Bokovitz, Chester County Workforce Investment Board
Frank Carey, Delaware County Workforce Investment Board
Gerald Birkelbach, Montgomery County Workforce Investment Board
Sallie Glickman, Philadelphia Workforce Investment Board
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Greetings! As 2010 picks up steam, LSCA is moving forward, too! Read on to learn about our new initiatives and lastest program updates. |
| What's New on ExploreYourFuture.org |
 Over the past six months, our online career exploration tool ExploreYourFuture.org has experienced many changes as a result of funding received from the Delaware Valley Innovation Network, and collaboration with the Chester County Intermediate Unit.
To reflect the site's new home with LSCA, the career content was updated with 35 new careers in the Life Science category. Additions include Bioinformatics Specialist, Geneticist, Chemical Technician, Medical Writer, Clinical Data Analyst, Biomedical Engineer and many more.
Additionally, LSCA identified the need to draw users' attention to the careers that will be experiencing the most growth in tomorrow's economy. Working together with a talented team of web designers at the Chester County Intermediate Unit, we added a "Hot Job" logo, which vividly illustrates for users which jobs will be prominent in the future, based on predictions by the U.S. Department of Labor's ONET Online. The Hot Job indicator was placed on applicable careers in the Life Science & Health Care sections of the website.
Two films that were created previously were finalized and uploaded onto the site. "Bicycle Design" introduces a team of designers at Fuji Bicycles, located in Northeast Philadelphia. These former hobbyists took their passion for bicycles and turned it into a job that they love going to every day. "Flight Simulation" follows a team of pilots as they train for flight on the state-of-the-art centrifuges at the NASTAR Center, in Southampton. This new content is also on the homepage, with exciting images and fascinating quotes from the film's stars.
LSCA is thrilled to have taken on ExploreYourFuture.org, and plans are in place to continue improvements on the site in many exciting frontiers.
- The Life Science section of the career explorer will be expanded to include careers in Regulatory Affairs, Manufacturing, and Sales & Marketing . Currently the section includes categories for Researh & Development, Clinical Trials, and Engineering.
- The career wheel will be enhanced with a catalog of options for higher education & regional employers, helping students make the connection between the content on the site and their own college & career plans.
- The Resources section of the website will get a makeover. It will be transformed into a more user-friendly, vibrant, and intuitive page to increase its traffic.
- Both the Resources section and the Career Explorer will be updated with a search function, so users can immediately find the information that is most interesting to them.
All of these upgrades and more are in the planning stages and the LSCA team is seeking funding for these initiatives. |
| Southeastern Pennsylvania Health Care Partnership Received $100,000 in Incumbent Worker Training Funds |
 The Southeastern Pennsylvania Health Care Partnership is pleased to announce that it was awarded $100,000 for incumbent health care worker training this fiscal year from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. In keeping with the partnership's three foci; Health Information Technology, Grow-Your-Own Talent, and Emerging Technologies; eight training programs have been identified by the member organizations and approved by the partnership advisory board. The training programs will use the funding to train approximately 1,000 incumbent workers in the five-county area. Additional funds remain for training plans are in the works for later this fiscal year.
The SEPA Health Care Partnership is comprised of 27 regional organizations with over 50,000 employees. In a recent Partnership meeting, the members shared information about their funded training programs, and Gus Nyekan, Director of Human Resources of Programs Employing People (PEP) Services, won a raffle to attend the Pennsylvania Center for Health Careers Annual Best Practice Conference held on April 14th-15th in Harrisburg. Members of the SEPA Health Care Partnership Advisory Committee include Gene Zegar of Crozer-Keystone Medical System, Joseph Micucci of Methodist Hospital, Murray Swim of Montgomery Hospital, Marian Edmiston of Genesis Healthcare and Joseph Cassidy of Holy Redeemer Health System. If you would like to join the partnership or learn more about its initiatives, please contact Tish Gill, LSCA Project Manager.
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| Roundtable for Life Science Dislocated Workers |
 On Thursday, January 14, LSCA hosted a Life Science Roundtable kick-off meeting for the region's dislocated life science workers. Held at Penn State Great Valley the forum gathered more than 140 attendees.
Primarily from the five-county region, a majority of the participants had worked in Research and Development for large pharmaceutical organizations. The average length of employment in the industry was greater than 19 years (range 3 to 42 years). Over 1/3 of the participants did not receive professional transition services, with 2/3 not yet connected to PA CareerLink services.
The forum coordinated by Teri Black, included a panel of Human Resource professionals from local hiring companies (Shire Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer Inc., Polymedix, Inc., and Kensey Nash Corporation) and was moderated by Colleen Hamilton, Executive Director of LSCA. The participants then had the opportunity to attend smaller Q&A breakout sessions with the employer representatives. These sessions focused on critical job seeking elements such as researching job leads and companies, resume tips, networking, and interviewing.
The dislocated life science workers found the Roundtable very worthwhile and vital to their job search. The participants most appreciated the speakers willingness to share their respective 'insider' view regarding the current market. LSCA hopes to replicate smaller Life Science Roundtable discussions at each PA CareerLink in Southeastern Pennsylvania this spring. |
| On The Road with ExploreYourFuture.org |
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On January 26, LSCA was privileged to participate in the Dedication and Student Success Center Open House at Abraham Lincoln High School in Philadelphia. LSCA, in partnership with Philadelphia Academies, Inc., placed a computer kiosk dedicated to ExploreYourFuture.org in the school's new Student Success Center -- the hub of school counseling and career investigation activities at Lincoln and the first Student Success Center operated by the Academies, Inc.
At the opening, Susan Knoble and Jess Brock made a brief presentation about ExploreYourFuture.org to invited guests, including executives from the School District of Philadelphia, the Academies, and Lincoln High School. Students, school counselors, teachers, and the principal and assistant principals then used the kiosk to view the site and voiced excitement for the opportunity to access useful career information and videos on Explore Your Future. Lincoln High School plans to move the kiosk from classroom to classroom as a means of highlighting the availability of this great resource, as teachers begin their units on career exploration.
On Thursday, January 28th, LSCA colleagues Jess Brock, Susan Knoble, and Tish Gill, upon the invitation of school counselor Bob Beller, presented three ExploreYourFuture.org outreach sessions to Bartram High School Health Care Academy sophomores and juniors. The 85 students worked hands-on with the website in three 40-minute class periods, and responses to the site were collected in a survey and through conversation with the LSCA team.
The students reported that they found valuable information on the site and that it was easy to navigate. Many students found careers that they were searching for or discovered a new career that sparked their interest. The LSCA staff worked with groups and individually with students to guide them to areas of interest in health care and bioscience, as well as technology, engineering, and applied science fields. The school counselors deemed the day to be a worthwhile event and the faculty is planning to use the website in their other career academies as well. |
| LSCA Takes On Coordination of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Industry Partnership |
Elizabeth Walsh, Director of the Bucks County Workforce Investment Board sought the Life Science Career Alliance to offer its industry partnership coordination expertise to the Southeastern Pennsylvania Long-Term Care Industry Partnership. The partnership, currently in its fourth funding year received $100,000 in Incumbent Worker Training Funds from the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry and collaborates with the Bucks County Long Term Care Consoritium.
The Bucks County Long Term Care Consortium is a non-profit organization founded in 1997. Its mission is to promote the health and welfare of the residents who are served in the growing health care continuum in Bucks County. The consortium has grown to approximately 75 members including nursing homes, assisted living homes, retirement communities, ambulance and transportation providers, home health agencies, adult day care organizations, and physicians.
In years past, the SEPA LTC Partnership distrributed funding for a number of programs including training to promote advancement through career pathways: Wound Care, Diabetic Education, Supervisor, Dementia, Infection Control, and Management and Leadership training. Members of the Workforce Development Committee include Mary Ann Brooks of Friends Home and Village, Lynn Kopacz of Wood River Village, Suzanne Filippone, and
Cindy O'Brien of Pickering Manor. Alice Narlis also of Pickering Manor leads our General Membership. If you would like to join this partnership, please feel free to contact Tish Gill, LSCA Project Manager. |
| About Us |
Life Science Career Alliance (LSCA) was formed as a unique industry and education partnership in 2003 by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Regional Workforce Investment Board Collaborative and the Delaware Valley Healthcare Council to coordinate the region's efforts to deliver this pool of workers. In the years since, LSCA has sought to be a convener of the regional leadership of industry, education/training, and public sector stakeholder groups to address life science workforce development issues of mutual concern.
Sincerely,
Colleen Hamilton
Life Science Career Alliance
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