2020-2021 REGIONAL STRONG WORKFORCE PROJECTS

REGIONAL STRONG WORKFORCE PROGRAM:

  • Career Pathway Specialist - Career Pathways Specialist for Regional Colleges
  • Noncredit Career Pathways - Improving Regional Outcomes through Noncredit Supports
  • Bioscience Training Project - LA Bioscience Collaborative
  • LA Regional Nursing Curriculum Consortium (RNCC)
  • CA Cloud Workforce - California Cloud Computing
  • Teacher Preparation Pre-Apprenticeship Project: COVID Workforce Response

Career Pathway Specialist - Career Pathways Specialist for Regional Colleges- colleen mckinley

The Career Pathways Specialist Program provides funding and support for the 19 community colleges in LA Co. to build upon Round 1 and Round 2 activities and to continue to expand and revise Career Pathways at each college. The Career Pathways Specialist will collaborate with the K-12 Strong Workforce Program and identify programs that could begin at high schools and Regional Occupation Program. Additionally, they will collaborate with the Noncredit Programs at each of their colleges to align courses and programs. Utilizing the expertise of the Deputy Sector Navigators in LA Co., this program will facilitate regional advisory committees, counselor/faculty industry visits, and implement appropriate work based learning into the secondary and postsecondary programs.

Noncredit Career Pathways - Improving Regional Outcomes through Noncredit Supports- graciela vasquez

This project is a collaboration with the LA regional colleges to integrate noncredit supports for completions and transitions to CTE credit pathways and/or employment that align with state and federal metrics. Noncredit curriculum and programs created in previous rounds will be utilized as noncredit supports for the purpose of increasing regional SWP metrics, particularly completions and employment. The project seeks to support colleges in using these noncredit courses and programs in their own college’s Guided Pathways, Adult Education Program (AEP), Student Centered Funding Formula (SCFF) metrics, Vision for Success goals, and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) outcomes. The project will place emphasis on the integration of the priority sectors, such as Advanced Transportation and Logistics; Business and Entrepreneurship; Energy, Construction, and Utilities; Global Trade; Health; and Information and Community Technologies/Digital Media, into college pathways.

Bioscience Training Project - LA Bioscience Collaborative- michelle stieber

"The LA Bioscience Collaborative will: 1) Increase training capacity of 9 fiscal partner colleges using industry-aligned curriculum in stackable certificate programs to close the supply gap in LA County for middle skill bioscience workers. 2) Create work-based learning and/or dual enrollment opportunities for high school students and basic skills learners. 3) Market the opportunity of the certificates, AS and opportunity of a BS in bio-manufacturing or biotechnology (Mira Costa and Solano Colleges)."

LA Regional Nursing Curriculum Consortium (RNCC)- kelly brooks

The Regional Nursing Curriculum Consortium (RNCC) is a group of LA Region Community College Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) program leaders and faculty. The group’s objective is to develop a universal ADN curriculum, integrated with BSN curriculum to enable students to complete an ADN and BSN concurrently. There are models of this in Kansas, Arizona and Riverside, CA. The RNCC would like to create and implement an ADN to BSN model in which each LA Region ADN program uses common curriculum of 70 units and the student co-enrolls in a fully articulated BSN program. ADN to BSN academic progression is a current focus of nursing education and industry. As more employers follow industry trends such as seeking Magnet Recognition Status, the preference is toward BSN prepared nurses. ADN graduates are slower in finding employment, and employers often require the ADN nurse to achieve a BSN within a specified time. The goal of the RNCC is to make the ADN graduate a preferred employee to the region’s healthcare employers; combining the strengths of the ADN graduate (representative of their community, diverse, clinically competent) with the academic rigor of the BSN.

CA Cloud Workforce - California Cloud Computing- kenny lou

Amazon Web Services (AWS) partnered with Santa Monica College (SMC) to establish an industry aligned certificate in cloud computing with the main purpose of Round 2 funding going to planning and stakeholder engagement to establish a regional program and presence. For Round 3 the regional project is seeking to transition to build out career pathways with high school and job preparedness. Round 3 will expand work based learning for cloud technologies, and job preparedness such as work based learning and certification preparation as colleges take their initial certificate to a full associate degree. Along with a customer management strategic platform, the expansion of the regional project is about systems of on-boarding and off-boarding to all of our college’s cloud programs. The coordination by SMC will continue to convene and provide technical assistance in career pathway development as well as industry engagement with the assistance of AWS and educational consultants. Partner colleges will expand their high school partnerships to include cloud computing technology while partaking in regional industry certificate preparation and regional strategic communications.

Teacher Preparation Pre-Apprenticeship Project: COVID Workforce Response- graciela vasquez

The Teacher Preparation Pre-Apprenticeship Project: COVID Workforce Response project incorporates all of the regional priorities and COVID-Responsive Activities. This project will directly impact living wage in the LA region between July 1, 2020 and December 31, 2022 by offering participants gainful employment in the 20 teaching occupations shown in the labor market demand report. The occupations that require an Associate degree or certificate in this industry field offer median annual wages ranging between $25,818 and $70,486.  Other occupations in education that students begin at our community colleges offer median annual wages ranging between $37,288 and $122,126. Future teachers/students can advance financially through a teaching career by earning, sequentially, permits and certificates that, in turn, open the doors for employment in positions of increasingly higher responsibility and earnings. Beginning in Early Childhood Education students can complete permits to obtain employment in the following roles: Assistant, Associate Teacher, Teacher, Master Teacher, Site Supervisor, and/or Program Director. Students can also earn certificates in: Early Childhood Education; Early Intervention Assistant (geared toward preschool aged children); Special Education Assistant (geared toward preschool aged children); in addition to certifications available for students to earn in CTE-specific areas (for single-subject majors).