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SkillWorks News: Winter 2014-15
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A Message from SkillWorks' New Executive Director
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Dear Friends, Funders and Partners:
It is with great pleasure that I greet you as the new Executive Director of SkillWorks. I am very excited to be leading this terrific organization and with two months into my tenure I can say without hesitation that I feel right at home. I have spent considerable time meeting with and listening to many SkillWorks advisors, funders and workforce partners. From my many conversations, it is clear that SkillWorks has played a critical role to support several workforce partnerships that have led to significant outcomes for many individuals seeking to learn new skills and compete in the labor market. SkillWorks' investments through the years have led to compelling and impactful program innovations and employer partnerships. We have also influenced and shaped public policy to strengthen sector-based programs and minimize the skills gap.
As we enter 2015, SkillWorks will continue to seek out new partnerships and grow existing relationships in order to deepen our impact and strengthen our role as convener, connector, influencer and source of information and innovation. I am invigorated to lead SkillWorks into a new era where we will take on a more employer-centric model that will focus our efforts on building effective partnerships with business and industry through the creation of employer-driven collaboratives that will act as hubs for understanding and sharing labor market demand, building and informing training programs to meet occupational skill needs and provide a talent source for local and regional employers.
This year SkillWorks will also examine our own impact and focus our efforts to ensure that we are investing in long term economic resilience and resourcefulness for those individuals we serve through our workforce partnerships. To do this we will continue to increase access to training and education by supporting pathways to college and careers that lead to family sustaining and quality jobs and we will seek out partnerships across career technical and post-secondary institutions and community based organizations that will deepen our region's capacity and expand our reach and scale to serve more individuals and employers.
Our task is ambitious and exciting and it is my hope that 2015 will bring new partnerships, catalyze new investment and expand SkillWorks' reach and influence as a national model. I'd like to thank all of SkillWorks funders and partners for their support and guidance, and encourage all of us to embrace 2015 with a renewed determination to work collaboratively and towards our twin goals to serve low income individuals and meet employer needs for jobs in demand.
Happy New Year and I look forward to working with all of you.
Marybeth Campbell
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National Fund for Workforce Solutions Awarded $165,000 Social Innovation Fund Grant to SkillWorks
Funds will Support Efforts to Connect Workers and Jobseekers to Job-Driven Training
Fred Dedrick, executive director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, a national partnership of communities, employers, workers, and philanthropy, announced the awarding of a new $165,000 Social Innovation Fund (SIF) grant to SkillWorks this past quarter.
SkillWorks will direct this new $165,000 toward building on our current work of increasing credential completion and career advancement and engaging Opportunity Youth in sector-based training. SIF funding will enhance our industry/employer convening capacity as well as our documentation and learning dissemination strategies.
Through the Social Innovation Fund initiative, the National Fund currently supports regional workforce funder collaboratives that are creating locally designed workforce solutions in 23 communities across the country. SIF has enabled the National Fund generate support by matching the funds of more than a dozen national foundations dollar for dollar. Results show that the National Fund is making strides in moving incumbent workers and jobseekers toward career opportunities and advancement.
About the National Fund for Workforce Solutions
The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, based in Boston, MA, is an unprecedented initiative of more than 400 national and local funders that support regional funding collaboratives in 36 communities across the country. The National Fund partners with businesses, communities, and philanthropy to develop employer-driven workforce strategies to help low-wage workers and jobseekers obtain career opportunities, while creating talent supply chains that close skills gaps and strengthen local economies. To learn more about the National Fund, visit http://www.nfwsolutions.org.
About the Social Innovation Fund
The Social Innovation Fund (SIF) is a key White House initiative and program of the Corporation for National and Community Service. It has the simple but vital goal of finding solutions that work and making them work for more people. SIF unites public and private resources to evaluate and grow innovative community-based solutions that have evidence of results in low-income communities in any of three priority areas: economic opportunity, healthy futures, and youth development. For more information on the Social Innovation Fund and how to get involved, visit http://nationalservice.gov/programs/social-innovation-fund.
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Other Exciting News & Updates From This Quarter:
5th Annual Jobs and Workforce Summit: Investing in Talent
On October 15, 2014, SkillWorks attended the 5th Annual Jobs and Workforce Summit, hosted by the Workforce Solutions Group. The summit focused on the many changes affecting workforce development in Massachusetts; including new federal and state resources for job-driven training, the recently passed Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act, and the gubernatorial election.
Featured at the summit were over 300 business, community and education leaders who shared information about job creation efforts, statewide labor market and credential needs, registered apprenticeship programs in various sectors, and collaboration with vocational technical schools and community colleges. Speakers included then gubernatorial candidates Martha Coakley and now Governor-Elect Charlie Baker.
The Workforce Solutions Group also presented its annual
Workforce Champion Awards. 2014 winners include:
Youth Workforce Partnership of the Year:
SkillsBuild
Workforce Partnership of the Year:
2014 Anne Serino Memorial Award for
Employer of the Year:
Lifetime Achievement Award for Workforce Advocacy:
Governor Deval Patrick
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21st Century Talent: How Top Employers and Opportunity Youth are Changing America's Workforce
On November 6th, SkillWorks attended an event organized by Year Up and Commonwealth Corporation and hosted at Bank of America, featuring the recently launched the Grads of Life PSA Campaign. The event convened innovative employers from a variety of industries to engage on ways to collectively strengthen talent pools and expand career opportunities for young people. SkillWorks also participated in a reverse job fair in which employers had the opportunity to connect with Workforce Development organizations in order to learn more and take action in strengthening pathways for Opportunity Youth.
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Skills Training Vendor Roundtable 
SkillWorks, alongside English for New Bostonians and the Mayor's Office of Jobs and Community Services organized and hosted a Skills Training Vendor Roundtable for ESOL providers at The Boston Foundation on December 12th. This roundtable served as an opportunity for ESOL providers to learn more about training opportunities for their students and how they can best prepare and refer their students after they have completed an ESOL program. Skills Training Vendors included SkillWorks grantees JVS, YMCA Training Inc, BEST Corp, and AACA, as well as Haitian Multi-Service Center and Community Servings - The Teaching Kitchen.
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The Career Readiness Initiative is continuing their rollout across Adult Basic Education, Workforce and Community College systems in the state. All SkillWorks grantees are being included in the roll out. EOLWD will be holding an orientation webinar specifically for SkillWorks grantees in the coming month. Next steps include distributing CareerReady 101 licenses, setting up National Career Readiness Certificate testing sites, and training Job Profilers.
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With support from The Boston Foundation and SkillWorks, MAC convened a Workforce Development Task Force as a subset of their Boston Special Education Transition project. This taskforce is comprised of representatives from secondary and post-secondary schools, disability service agencies at the state and local levels, youth service organizations, the business community, organized labor, workforce training and intermediary organizations, disability advocates and city government. Following the release of a Resource Map of Services at the first taskforce meeting in May 2014, staff has conducted an environmental scan about trends in legislation, policy and funding that will impact access of students with disabilities to post-secondary employment and education opportunities. This data will inform the development of a gap analysis presented at their December 2014 meeting and a series of recommendations and implementation commitments to be completed by March 2015.
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Introducing SkillWorks Winter 2014 Phase III Grantees!
On December 16, 2014, SkillWorks' Funders Group approved another round of Phase III grants:
New Funding:
- Pine Street Inn: $112,000 over 2 years to implement their Credential Completion and Career Advancement (CCCA) Initiative
- Career Vocational Technical Education (CTVE) & Business and Industry Consortium: $10,000 to fund a research project that will focus on questions related to improving the skills of the Commonwealth' CVTE students by researching issues of access to CVTE programs, meeting employer demand through career and technical education and expanding the quality career/vocational programs that already exist.
Continued Funding:
- BEST Corp: $54,500 in year 2 funding for their Hospitality Training Center
- JVS: $100,000 in year 2 funding for their Healthcare Training Institute
- YMCA Training Inc: $75,000 in year 2 funding for the Emerging Careers in Health Insurance program
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Congratulations to SkillWorks' Partner Organizations!
JVS Awarded $15 million Pay for Success Bond for Adult Basic Education
This past fall, JVS Boston was awarded the nation's first adult education/employment Pay For Success Bond. Pay for Success is performance-based contracting between government and social service providers, wherein investors provide the working capital for pay-for performance contracting services, in the form of bond purchases, and the bonds and investors are re-paid if target outcomes and related savings are achieved. Through JVS, with support from Social Finance and Jobs for the Future , this project will provide adult education and employment services to nearly 3,000 individuals across the greater Boston area, north shore, and metro-west. -----
After a competitive selection process, the Boston Opportunity Youth Collaborative has chosen X-Cel Education to operate the new Boston Opportunity Youth Connection Center opening in early 2015.
The Boston Opportunity Youth Collaborative, organized with support from the Aspen Institute by the Boston Private Industry Council and the Boston Opportunity Agenda received additional funding from Aspen to set up an Opportunity Youth Connection Center in Boston. Boston's Opportunity Youth are 11,764 young adults between the ages of 16 and 24 who are out of school and out of work. Of these youth, 8,476 (72%) have at least a high school equivalency, and most are 20-24 years old. The Connection Center's mission is to re-engage these 20-24 year-olds.
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Recent SkillWorks Resources and Publications
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Workforce Roundup
If you would like to submit any workforce news, funding opportunities, or research or have an idea for a blog post you would like to submit, please contact SkillWorks Program Coordinator, Kaitlyn Bean.
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Upcoming Events
SkillWorks and our grantees and partners are involved in a number of upcoming, exciting events!
- February 6: SkillWorks Grantee Convening and Career Readiness Initiative orientation
- March 10: Youth Industry Partnership (YIPI) Convening
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Gary L. Gottlieb, MD, MBA, President and CEO Partners HealthCare and Chair of the Boston Private Industry Council Board of Directors with one of the 2014 PIC Achievers Samira Boughari - Graduate of Bunker Hill Community College, and Boston University's BioScience Academy program. Samira worked closely with SkillWorks College Navigator with the Boston PIC, Zeida Santos, who helped her apply for the BioScience Academy.
Congratulations, Samira!
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Watch our 2014 Gubernatorial Forum: Building Massachusetts' Skills to Compete!
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SkillWorks Phase III Funders The Frank W. and Carl S. Adams Memorial Trust, Bank of America, N.A.. Trustee Balfour Foundation Bank of America Perpetual Giving Trust Bank of America Charitable Foundation BNY Mellon The Boston Foundation The Clowes Fund, Inc The City of Boston's Neighborhood Jobs Trust The Jacobs Foundation JP Morgan Chase Ludcke Foundation Mabel Louise Riley Foundation National Fund for Workforce Solutions State Street Foundation U.S. Department of Labor, through Jobs for the Future
Thank you for your support! |
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SkillWorks Phase III Grantees
(as of December 2014)
Workforce Partnerships
AACA - Building Energy Efficient Maintenance Skills
BEST Corp - Hospitality Training Center
Boston PIC - Healthcare Careers Consortium
JVS - Healthcare Training Institute
MAC - B-SET Taskforce
Pine Street Inn: CCCA Initiative
X-Cel Education
Year Up
YMCA Training Inc.YouthBuild Boston - Green
Construction Program
Capacity Building Boston PIC - College Navigation Career Readiness Commonwealth of MA - Career Readiness Initiative
Policy Advocacy
Job Training Alliance Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center Workforce Solutions Group
Program Innovation
JVS - Persistance Plus college persistence application X-Cel Education - College Snapps college persistence application
Research CTVE research
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Keep in Touch!
'Til the next newsletter, stay up to date on all the latest SkillWorks & Workforce Development updates!
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About SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce
SkillWorks is an ambitious effort on the part of philanthropy, government, community organizations, unions, and employers to respond to Massachusetts' workforce crisis. SkillWorks' goal is to create a workforce development system that helps low-skill, low-to-moderate income residents move to family-sustaining jobs and helps employers find and retain skilled employees. It is the largest public/private investment in workforce development in Boston's history.
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