TE Attends National Skills Coalition Conference
On February 5th-7th, Towards Employment was represented at the National Skills Coalition Conference by Senior Manager Bishara Addison. She participated as the State lead alongside representatives from Tri-C, Automation Tool & Die, the Literacy Cooperative, and Policy Matters OH. National Skills Coalition is a broad-based coalition of workforce providers, community colleges, career trade schools, policy advocates, researchers and employers that are collectively working toward a vision of an America that grows its economy by investing in its people so that every worker and every industry has the skills to compete and prosper.
NSC engages advocacy & communications to advance state and federal policies that support these goals – developed by more than 28,000 members representing organizations from all 50 states. Towards Employment was especially excited to see that in their 2019 Skills For Good Jobs Agenda, one of the recommendations was to pass the Gateway to Careers Act as a part of the 2019 Higher Education Act Reathorization to establish a “career pathways” fund to support the success of today’s college student. Adults balancing full-time work and family obligations are a rapidly growing segment of today’s community college enrollments. This fund would support career pathways models that combine basic and occupational skills training; career counseling and case management; and support services like child care and transportation assistance. Towards Employment was part of a national demonstration project called WorkAdvance, that tested this concept and found that those who participated were 4x more likely than the control group to complete technical training, we know first hand that this works!