What did you do on your summer vacation?  Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County worked with a group of exceptional youth and placed them in work experience opportunities. We are very proud of the special Tarrant County youth who earned experience, valuable work and soft skills, a Netbook computer and most importantly a pay check by working hard this summer! Workforce Solutions was fortunate to work with some amazing Employers in this program as well. The Employers who were a part of this program helped mold the youth and make them a greater asset to any employer in Tarrant County. 

The Learn and Earn Summer Youth program was Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County's Employment Solution for the youth this summer. Learn and Earn 2012 was a huge success. Staff worked to match youth into positions that matched their skill sets.  

Over 113 youth were enrolled in the 6 week work experience program. Each youth who successfully completed the program earned a Netbook computer, valuable work and soft skills and most importantly a paycheck. We are also very excited to report that a few of the participants were offered full time positions after their summer experience ended. At this month's Board meeting we will have the pleasure of hearing from some of the participants of this program.  

Some quick stats about the program:

• 127 youth were recruited for the Learn and Earn Program 
• 113 youth were placed in work experience positions
• 11 youth accepted permanent positions at worksites after their Work Experience ended 
• 88 youth completed the program and were issued Netbooks
• 7 Community Service Projects Sites were served
• 30 Youth Work Experience Sites were Served
• $130,115 wages paid this summer (note: this number will increase once final payroll is run)  

Some of the Youth from the Learn and Earn Summer Youth Program working at the Community Food Bank.  

One of our Learn and Earn participates on the job as an office clerk at Tarrant County College  

Celebration's of program completion and Netbook handouts took place at each of our youth center locations this week. Board and Center Staff were excited to host the celebrations and join in on recognizing each success. Here we see an excited group from the Northside Workforce Center. Each of these youth shared what they had learned from the program and how excited they were to use their new found skills.

Congratulations to the youth who participated in our First Learn and Earn Program. Also a kudos to the youth staff who worked hard on this important program. 

In an attempt to always be on the lookout for ways in which we can Keep Tarrant County Working - we have recently launched a WorkInTexas.com (WIT) Marketing Campaign.

 We encourage you in your day-to-day work as you meet with different individuals looking for work or employers looking to reach qualified candidates to tell them more about WorkInTexas.com or WIT as we like to call it. WorkInTexas.com is provided at no cost, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and seeks to match qualified job seekers with potential job opportunities by comparing experience, skills, abilities, education and other factors.

WorkInTexas Stats (reported on Monday, August 27, 2012): 1,983 Jobs Posted that day, 69,941 Total Job Openings, 579,503 Online Resumes and 2,172,402 Total Jobs Filled.

This is a wonderful resource that is available at no cost. If you are an Employer and would like more information about WIT please contact: Amber Gosser by phone at 817.804.4255 or by email at: amber.gosser@workforcesolutions.net .

A full report on all of the outreach efforts can be found in this month's Keeping Tarrant County Working Report. Below are some of the highlights from that report:  

Outreach Efforts:

If you visit our website you will see the new job seeker and employer brochures for WIT. We invite you to check out the new brochures and share the link with others. Along with the new brochures we launched a new marketing campaign which has included the following outreach efforts (most of this was rolled out July 15th):

• Bus Benches and Bus Tail advertisements
• Ads at the Parks at Arlington and Hulen Mall
• Articles in all of the local Chambers of Commerce Newsletters, soon will be in some of the local city officials newsletters and we are working on having current information on Tarrant County, The City of Arlington and the City of Fort Worth's websites updated. Below are the wonderful Chambers who spread our message about WIT:
1. Arlington Chamber of Commerce
2. Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce
3. Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
4. Fort Worth Metropolitan Black Chamber of Commerce
5. Grapevine Chamber of Commerce
6. H-E-B Chamber of Commerce
7. Northeast Tarrant Chamber of Commerce
8. U.S. Pan Asian American Chamber of Commerce - Southwest
• A special thank you to the City of Arlington who saw our post on our new WIT campaign and posted something on their Facebook!
• In the August City of Fort Worth Water Bill you should have seen an article about the wonderful benefits of WIT for both job seekers and employers. Thank you to Mayor Price and her office for helping us make this happen.
• In the September City of Arlington Water Bill you will see an insert about WIT again speaking to job seekers and employers (this will be a two sided insert - the other side will be about the upcoming ArlingtonAnswers.com Job Fair). Thank you to Mayor Cluck and his office for helping us make this happen.
• The Business Services team has already been out in the community spreading the word about WIT, they have been a part of some big job fairs this summer and they don't seem to be slowing down for the fall! We have created new tabletop banner stands and promotional items as well as the new brochures to help them spread the word. Some of the big events they debuted our new WIT Materials at include:
1. 16th Annual Government Procurement Conference
2. Governor's Small Business Forum & Expo
3. 11th Annual Asian American Business Expo
4. Multiple Job and Hiring Fairs
5. And soon in October - the HR Southwest Conference. The Business Service "Dream Team" will dazzle these HR professionals with all that WIT and Workforce can offer.

Those are just a few of the ways in which we are getting our new message about WIT out. If you receive any newsletters or send any newsletters on behalf of your company that you feel might let us share our WIT message please contact Lacey Douglas by phone at 817.413.4489 or by email at lacey.douglas@workforcesolutions.net  so she can follow up and see if we can get something added.

A few visuals of our outreach efforts (you may see a few around town!):

Bus Benches (with matching Bus Tails) can be seen around Tarrant County  

New materials including brochures, promotional materials and tabletop banner stands are used at all events.  

 Ad's at both The Parks at Arlington Mall and Hulen Mall   

2012 International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies Individual Achievement Award Recipient: ESTRUS TUCKER

Fort Worth, Texas resident and leader Estrus Tucker received the distinguished International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies (IAOHRA), Individual Achievement Award at the 62nd Annual Conference held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans, LA, August 4th through August 9, 2012.

The Individual Achievement Award is presented to an International Association of Official Human Rights Agencies (IOAHRA) Member for his or her continuing commitment to equal opportunity and civil rights, demonstrated through his or her efforts to create and implement high caliber programs for civil rights enforcement professionals and their communities.

Estrus Tucker has been an exceptionally active Chair of the Fort Worth Human Relations Commission, IAOHRA member for over twelve years and IAOHRA Board Member for the past 2 years. His inspiring leadership, public speaking, writing, facilitative skills and advocacy positioned civil rights enforcement programming for maximum impact and significantly advanced the civil and human rights agenda in Texas and beyond.

Estrus assertively led the Commission during critical times of progressive city non-discrimination ordinance revisions, substantial overhaul of Commission By-laws, Policies and Practices, creative community engagement initiatives and a series of city budget reductions, reorganizations, layoffs and consolidations that often threatened the viability or existence of civil rights enforcement staffing.

Estrus' leadership and vision as a civil and human rights advocate and championing of the IAOHRA mission has extended beyond Texas, to include extensive reconciliation and civic engagement work across the state of Mississippi and New Orleans for the past seven years, and recent work in Hawaii, Belfast Northern Ireland and Cape Town, South Africa where he has labored to create awareness, capacity and sustainable support for global reconciliation, conflict transformation and healing. 

Congratulations again to Estrus! You continue to make us proud!

The Governor's Small Business Forum & EXPO was held on Thursday, August 2, 2012 at the Irving Convention Center at Los Colinas.  

Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County partnered with Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas at this event. The keynote speak for the luncheon was baseball legend Nolan Ryan.  

Chairman and Commissioner Representing the Public, Andres Alcantar was also present. Chairman Alcantar spoke to the group about the importance of small businesses working with their local workforce board. 

Sellmark Corporation of Mansfield being awarded a small business award at the Governor's Small Business Forum & EXPO on August 2, 2012. Sellmark was our nominee for this award and have been a wonderful employer partner!  

Also recognized at the forum was Southwest Office Supply - nominated by the Irving Chamber of Commerce. Congrats Buddy!  

Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County is proud to continue being a part of Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price's young leaders initiative, SteerFW. Workforce Solutions is participating on the employment task force, the group hopes to make policy recommendations to the City Council in the future. Renee Parker, Business Services Coordinator for Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County leads the Employment Task Force. An article about SteerFW and the Employment Task Force was featured this week in the Star-Telegram click the link below to read the article: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/08/23/4202324/job-search-takes-commitment-resources.html. This article can also be found in this month's Items of Interest packet.

Join the SteerFW group on Thursday, September 13, 2012 as each task force gives a project update in the Report to the Community. More information can be found below:

As we reported in the June Newsletter,  The Fatherhood Coalition of Tarrant County held a Fatherhood Conference May 24-25, 2012 at the TCC Trinity River Campus. Workforce Governing Board Chair and Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley was the emcee of the Luncheon. We had many special guests join us at this event including Tarrant County Commissioner, Andy H. Nguyen of Precinct 2. Another very special guest in attendance, Eugene Schneeberg, Director of the Justice Department's Center for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships. 

Commissioner Andy Nguyen pictured here with the other "Heroes of Fatherhood" at the Fatherhood Conference in May.

The close-out conference for the first year of the Health and Human Services' three-year demonstration grants for Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage took place in Washington, D.C. this month with an Olympics theme. Attendees were commended for their Olympian efforts to address the challenges faced by children living in homes where the father's impact is diminished by his absence or unavailability as a resource to his children financially and emotionally. Workforce Solutions, in collaboration with eight community partners, received one of the larger Responsible Fatherhood grants to serve primarily low-income fathers and families in Tarrant County.

The Workforce Solutions grant known as FACT, Fathers And Children Together, offers an array of services focused on employment, responsible parenting, and healthy relationships through a comprehensive, collaborative, case-managed strategy. Board staff Mervil Johnson, Debby Kratky, and Erin Lewis attended the conference along with approximately 200 other grantee program representatives from throughout the United States.

Conference sessions were designed to highlight best practices as well as provide insight into the performance measures that would be required of grantees to demonstrate effective programmatic strategies and outcomes. Conference sessions included the following topics:

• Performance Measures: Pathways to Responsible Fatherhood
• Making Subsidized Employment Work
• Building Your Healthy Marriage or Responsible Fatherhood Program: Tools from the Field
• Strategies for Recruiting and Retaining Program Participants
• Engaging Community Partners
• Fatherhood Buzz: Responsible Fatherhood: Effective Strategies and Lessons Learned
• Case Management: Why Do It, and What are the Benefits
• Career Pathways Program Models: Job/Career Advancement and Economic Stability

The second year allocation of funding for Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage grantees has been approved. This is the second major funding of fatherhood grants by the Department of Health and Human Services in an effort to address the issue of father absence and the concomitant adverse consequences for America's children.

To learn more about Workforce Solution's FACT Project or to refer interested fathers, please contact Board staff Mervil Johnson or Erin Lewis at 817.413.4400 or visit the Fatherhood Initiative link on our website at www.workforcesolutions.net.

More and more people and organizations are on Facebook than ever before. Organizations are finding that this is a great way to reach their consumers with important information about products and services they offer. Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County has two official Facebook pages. We encourage you to check them out and "Like" them as well as "Share" them with your friends, partners and business associates.

Our first Facebook page is simply called Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County. This page speaks specifically to our Employers and Job Seekers with services we offer, the latest Labor Statistics, Funding information, award wins, press releases, news from the Texas Workforce Commission, Calendar Information, etc......

Our second Facebook page is geared specifically for our youth. It is called: Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County Youth Services. It has all kinds of wonderful information about Job Fairs, workshops, etc....

Coming Soon: Watch for details about the Workforce Solutions for Tarrant County LinkedIn Account. We are also currently exploring other social media outlets to expand our outreach efforts in the community.