IWSI America

Institute for Workplace Skills & Innovation America

Articles

‘Promising career pathways in Appalachia’ – ACTE Online

Late in 2018, a diverse group of companies, community and educators met to cement a partnership that would bring high-quality career pathways — apprenticeships — to southeastern Kentucky’s Appalachian region.

The Kentucky Advanced Technical College High, which was funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, combined technical instruction with paid, on-the-job training under a skilled mentor. The goal was to help students in the region move smoothly from high school to postsecondary education and employment.

Kentucky Appalachia has been affected drastically by the loss of coal jobs, the opioid crisis, pervasive poverty, and health care disparities. To address these issues, the program partners expressed particular interest in developing apprenticeships for high-demand, high-growth occupations in allied health. Apprenticeships in these areas would provide both solid careers and needed services in the region.

Business-education partners in apprenticeship

The partnership enlisted the Institute for Workplace Skills & Innovation (IWSI) America to develop the customized, innovative apprenticeship model. The group has previously provided technical support and program design to a wide range of businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia. Each apprenticeship program is unique and a hybrid model was developed to suit the local Appalachian circumstance.

The Appalachian model included the following elements:

  • Working with educational institutions and other training providers to align technical skills and workplace competencies
  • Working with educational institutions and employer partners to develop or modify curricular materials to meet changing business demands
  • Offering professional development and capacity-building sessions for apprentice trainers and educators to ensure that training engages apprentices in active learning
  • Identifying and training mentors to work with apprentices throughout the tenure of their apprenticeship
  • Identifying apprentice candidates from underserved populations and isolated service areas
  • Exploring and documenting employment pathway options for all apprentices participating in the program
  • Recruiting additional businesses from the region who agree to hire apprentices
  • Exploring comprehensive wraparound services to ensure apprentices can complete programs
  • Managing assessments of apprentices’ competencies to produce periodic progress reports and validate their ultimate certification as skilled workers
  • Developing long-term talent pipelines for employers

The Kentucky Advanced Technical College High partners include:

  • Appalachian Regional Healthcare
  • Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky
  • University of Kentucky Healthcare
  • Hometown Pharmacy
  • Perry County Schools
  • Hazard Independent Schools
  • Hazard Community and Technical College

The career pathways program was launched in mid-2019, after months of intensive planning by the project partners. Students who progress through program completion can receive multiple credentials upon graduation, including a high school diploma, a U.S. Department of Labor accreditation, and even an associate degree. Beginning in ninth and tenth grade, interested students enroll in technical courses where they can earn both high school and college credit. The students also receive work experience in career areas related to their coursework, initially by job shadowing. Then, in their junior and senior years, the students may be hired as apprentices at local businesses.

Supporting students & the economy in times of challenge

Launching shortly before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic was not ideal. Despite that challenge, however, the partnership not only survived but thrived, with 65 students participating in the project to date. Some continue to work as apprentices for the programs health care partners; others enrolled in college to pursue interests in allied health — studying medicine or related fields. Still others discovered that careers in the health care field were not for them. Those learners shifted their dual college credit to another apprenticeship pathway, and we know they’ll find success.

Having resided in Kentucky for most of my adult life, I have witnessed the many challenges in Appalachia. I am proud of the partners and participants especially during the unprecedented time. Business, education, and community partners have come together to create a strong model for helping young people transition from school to meaningful work. Young people who may have left the area have stayed in Kentucky due to the partners’ investment in career pathways. They’re getting the education and experience they need to secure well-paying jobs in high-demand career fields.

‘Teen-run courts dispense justice, launch legal careers’ –  Juvenile Justice Information Exchange

By Deborah Williamson

For more than 40 years, teen courts across the 50 states have proven their success at letting high school students — serving as lawyers, jurors, bailiffs and judges — determine the real-life sentences of alleged juvenile offenders who are their peers.

Having created several teen courts in Kentucky, I know that such programs doubled as a pre-law apprenticeship for high school students, while also aiming to divert juvenile offenders from incarceration.

Judges who preside over juvenile courts often have acknowledged that what happens in those proceedings amounts to a stern lecture to young, low-level offenders. They see teen court as a refreshing approach that allows offenders to be judged by individuals their own age, who have had similar life experiences. And young offenders are responsive to that dynamic. They are fully engaged in proceedings that are not rote and scripted. They’ve watched as teen prosecutors argue for maximum terms and teen defense attorneys cite reasons why sentences should be lenient.

Some of our strongest and most steadfast teen court participants, including jurors, actually had had prior offenses resolved through the teen court process. They freely acknowledge the second chance and are grateful that they weren’t marred by a criminal record that might damage their future.

Aspiring lawyers are recruited for teen court

Led by prosecutors and defense attorneys and presided over by an actual, adult judge, highly structured teen courts orient students on the roles of lawyers, court clerks, bailiffs and jurors. When they complete the training, students are sworn to an academic year of service by court judges in a formal ceremony attended by parents and members of the community.

All participants are sworn to confidentiality; they may be removed from the program and subject to sanctions if they violate this confidentiality.  Some states require teen court participants to pass an exam prior to being sworn to service.

Though it varies by state, generally, offenders referred to teen court are between the ages of 13 and 17 and have been charged with such low-level, nonviolent offenses as theft by unlawful taking, criminal mischief, harassment, criminal trespassing, disorderly conduct and so forth.  A teen court participants decide whether and how a teen defendant should be sentenced, they are operating under the idea that judgement by ones peers can have a positive effect, encouraging law-abiding behavior and community engagement. The ideas is that teens are highly sensitive to peer opinion.

Dispositions made in teen court typically include community service, restitution, apologies, counseling, educational programs and other alternatives. In the Kentucky programs I established, teen defendants always were required to return to serve on a teen court jury, reinforcing pro-social engagement with peers.

If a judge accepts a teen court jury’s ruling on a case, it is binding and becomes part of the record. Offenders who comply with the terms rendered by the teen court jury may have their case settled without it becoming part of court records. Cases of those who don’t comply may be sent to juvenile court and resolved there.

The wins in this program are unparalleled. Rates of compliance with teen court dispositions generally are high; rates of recidivism are low.  The program also provides excellent lessons in corrective and procedural justice and fosters the development of enlightened, engaged citizens. For multiple years in high school, many teen court participants serve the court and, ultimately, seek admission to law school or other related field in the justice system.

Teen court and other apprenticeships have increased in number

Teen courts can be strengthened even further by incorporating them into a pre-apprenticeship or federally recognized registered apprenticeshipprogram.

Apprenticeships provide a paycheck, on-the-job training and related classroom instruction.  Apprentices who successfully complete their training get a recognized, portable credential and, often, some college credit.

Registered apprenticeship has grown 70%  the United States over the last 10 years.  And according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the paralegal and legal assistant professions are projected to grow 12% between 2020 and 2030, faster than the average for all occupations. That translates into 43,000 para-professional jobs per year for the next several years.

One approved apprenticeship in the field – paralegal – mirrors the tasks participants in teen court already do:

  • Preparing and managing legal documents.
  • Meeting with individuals involved in a legal proceeding to either clarify or gather additional information.
  • Coordinating schedules and activities in legal proceedings.
  • Representing the interest of clients in legal proceedings.
  • Mediating disputes between parties.

If these skills were incorporated into a teen court registered apprenticeship, participants could turn an informal job route into a solid career pathway.

Given the success of both teen court and apprenticeship, it would seem wise for leaders in both areas to align their efforts and create a teen court apprenticeship that would give young people career opportunities in the fast-growing and well-paid legal sector.

https://jjie.org/2022/05/10/opinion-teen-run-courts-dispense-justice-launch-legal-careers/

‘Solving healthcare staff shortages with disability inclusion’ – Healthcare Digital

https://healthcare-digital.com/hospitals/solving-healthcare-staff-shortages-with-disability-inclusion

IWSI America’s COO Andrew Sezonov & CSO Simon Whatmore on why the healthcare staff shortage can be solved with the inclusion of people with disabilities

Everywhere you look across the US healthcare sector, skilled healthcare professionals are in high demand and short supply. 

Few sectors, if any, face as many complex challenges as healthcare to secure the skilled workforce required to meet client needs, say IWSI America’s COO Andrew Sezonov and CSO Simon Whatmore.

While recruiting healthcare talent was never as simple as lodging a vacancy online and waiting for the applications to roll in, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these challenges significantly. 

Healthcare staff burnout and shortages post COVID-19

The upheaval and uncertainty the sector has had to overcome in responding to COVID-19 has led to a marked increase in staff burnout and turnover, as well as critically interrupted the flow of new talent pipelines, as many clinical placements and other practical requirements for formal professional qualification or registration were deferred or cancelled.

Yet these widespread skills shortages have not reduced demand for healthcare services, which are forecast to grow and keep growing. 

A 2021 US healthcare labour market analysis by Mercer revealed that we can expect the current chronic skills shortages to persist in the years to come, because in the majority of states, the projected supply of healthcare workers will be unable to meet market demand. Indeed, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects the need for an additional 1.1m registered nurses by 2030, and New York and California each face a healthcare workforce shortage of half a million positions within the next five years.

The Mercer report also identified that the most acute workforce shortages will be in frontline allied healthcare positions such as medical assistants, home health aides, nursing and dental assistants and medical imaging technicians.

If current workforce attrition, retirement and training trends hold, Mercer predicts America will face an allied healthcare worker shortfall of 3.2m workers in the next five years. 

In this labour market, it is unlikely that overworked healthcare recruiters can address this seven-figure shortfall by doubling down on the same old recruitment strategies. Nor is poaching experienced staff from rivals a viable option – a simple recipe for rapid wage inflation. 

Long term, the most effective way to resolve the current challenge is to expand and diversify the healthcare workforce.

If we can refresh the approach to recruitment and modernise our recruitment and training processes to ensure they are truly accessible and inclusive, we can turn our current challenges into a once-in-a-generation opportunity to improve employment outcomes for historically underemployed groups, particularly Americans with a disability.

Supporting people with disabilities access healthcare employment opportunities

Across all age and educational attainment groups, unemployment rates for people with a disability are higher than those for people without a disability.

Despite the fact that one in four adult Americans lives with a disability, and roughly one in five school-aged Americans identify as having a recognised disability, Americans with a disability still experience appalling employment outcomes. 

Illustrating this, in February 2022, the BLS reported that America’s disability employment gap was more than 44% – only 19.1% of Americans with a disability were in ongoing employment, compared to 63.7% for those without a disability.

People with a disability are ideally suited for many common allied health professions in shortage, there is every reason to believe significantly more Americans with a disability can transition into mainstream employment as we address these skills shortages.

One programme which could become the template for change to come is the Ready, Willing and Able pilot programme. Recently launched by the California Government and IWSI America, the programme aims to support Californians with disabilities to access emerging allied health employment opportunities. The programme’s name was chosen to highlight the fact that there are millions of Americans with a disability who are ready, willing and able to work, and are simply awaiting an opportunity.

The pilot programme will focus on connecting suitable candidates with allied healthcare jobs to be delivered as part of registered apprenticeship programmes.

Apprenticeships are uniquely suited to help people with disabilities enter the healthcare workforce. The structure of career and technical education (CTE) training breaks down the teaching of complex skills into modular units and is proven to successfully support people with physical or developmental disabilities to master skills and build confidence. This structure also provides the apprentice with a degree of certainty and long-term security – something that shift work or seasonal jobs cannot.

We talk a big game on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Now is the time to bring more Americans with a disability into mainstream employment. If we cannot improve employment outcomes for Americans with a disability (and other disadvantaged and underrepresented groups) during a red-hot labour market, then when can we expect to?

Ready Willing and Able Announces First Employer Partner, Now Hiring New Apprentice Positions

An exciting day for the Ready, Willing and Able disability employment initiative, as the partnership proudly announced securing the first employer partner.

The California State Society of Opticians through their employment networks has committed to create multiple opportunities throughout the region for apprentice spectacle dispensers and apprentice contact lens dispenser positions exclusively through the Ready, Willing and Able program.

The announcement was made during a Ready, Willing and Able Stakeholder Forum, where participants discussed how to create new employment opportunities and address structural barriers to improve employment outcomes for Californian residents with a disability.

Ruby Garcia, Executive Director of the California State Society of Opticians (pictured here with Trung Le, Assistant Deputy Director, California Department of Rehabilitation and Alex Mendoza, Ready, Willing and Able Workforce Industry Liaison) was on hand to explain why the Society is excited about the possibilities of this unique apprenticeship initiative.

We are sure this announcement will be the first of many, and look forward to announcing more employer partners soon.

We are actively looking for new partners: if you are interested in getting involved with the Ready, Willing and Able program, whether it be as an employer or potential apprenticeship candidate, please contact Alex Mendoza to find out more.

For more information on how to join the partnership offering employment opportunities, or to apply for one of the exciting apprenticeship opportunities, please contact Alexandra Mendoza on 949 685 9020.