2022-2024 Regional Strong Workforce Projects

This project was developed to address the call to action for more and better CTE. For the past several years, the region has been highly focused on the “more” but has been somewhat inefficient at addressing the “better” as it relates to getting students employed and improving their earnings. Colleges are challenged with capitalizing on the regional efforts to connect with employers, engage businesses and intermediaries, and coordinate the employment services embedded in many of the regional projects since most do not have the staff to coordinate these employment efforts and provide the direct services needed to maximize the impact on students. If we want to increase the social mobility of our students, we must invest in a sustainable regional infrastructure with campus-based service delivery to support the job placement and tracking of our students in real time.

Cornerstone Project: Noncredit Career Pathways- Graciela Vasquez

Since 2017, the Noncredit Career Pathways project has supported the development of noncredit programs in high demand career fields that prepare students for college and work. Overall goals of this project are as follows:

Develop free, noncredit, short-term, competency-based training and career pathways programs.
Support regional economic recovery and growth by providing essential training to underrepresented populations.
Organize professional development for region to ensure the expansion of noncredit CTE programs including distance education, competency-based education, apprenticeships, and noncredit work experience.

Cornerstone Project: Career Pathways Partnership-Colleen McKinley

The Career Pathways Partnership Project was created to fund one full time individual (Career Pathways Specialist) at each college to facilitate the development/revision of the CTE Career Pathways from HS and Noncredit courses to entry level employment or CTE Bachelor’s Degree Programs. They work in concert with the K12 Pathways Coordinators to develop this alignment utilizing LMI data, articulation agreements and offering dual enrollment courses (www.lacareerpathwayspartnership.com).

Los Angeles Regional Marketing- Nick Real

The Los Angeles Regional Marketing Round 7 proposal, is a completely new effort charged with transforming regional marketing for the 19 Los Angeles community colleges. The key differentiator of this project is that it’s messaging, and social media campaign strategies shall reflect programs that are in high demand such that the LA19 will see an increase in enrollment in those disciplines to meet occupational needs and employments gaps. In addition, the project will focus on building on the foundation of the LARC brand, and the critical data points, assets (creative content), processes, and relationships that have been built to streamline the process for each local campus to benefit from these investments and outcomes.

Industry 4.0- Manufacturing and Industrial Systems Technicians- Nick Real

Los Angeles Basin, the largest manufacturing center in the United States.
The manufacturing and related industry sectors are undergoing a major workforce transformation, transitioning to more specialized and multifunctional “high-tech” skills.
We are under-supplying the region’s advanced manufacturing talent needs by 20,000 unfilled positions each year, exposing an opportunity for great impact.
A coordinate response addressing the skills gaps and aligning programs to industry-valued and recognized stackable and transportable credentials.