The purpose of The Breaking Through Practice Guide is to help practitioners better connect adults who have low literacy and math levels with a postsecondary occupational or technical education. It highlights innovations and practices that can be used to address and circumvent institutional barriers commonly encountered when serving low-skilled adults. The practice guide focuses on innovations and best practices from community colleges that participated in the Breaking Through initiative between...
This business engagement toolkit is designed to help community-based organizations recruit, engage, and develop ongoing relationships with businesses in their communities with the goal of creating long-term, sustainable partnerships capable of delivering the largest impact on a community's goals for youth as part of the Ready by 21 strategy.
This toolkit was developed as part of the Ford Foundation's Community College Bridges to Opportunity Initiative. Bridges to Opportunity was a multi-year initiative that sought to reform State policy with the aim of improving education and employment outcomes for educationally and economically disadvantaged adults in six States using a Career Pathways model.
The Career Pathways Toolkit: Six Key Elements for Success was developed as part of the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration's Career Pathways Initiative to help guide State and local leaders in building and sustaining career pathway systems. The 2015 update provides information about the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA).
The Manufacturing Skills Certification System was created to ensure that postsecondary certificate programs in manufacturing would be uniformly responsive to the industry's needs across the country. The System supplies industry-driven certifications that align to identified competencies, sample curricula, and a framework for evaluating existing programs of study to prepare students to acquire those certifications. The Manufacturing Institute hosts the Manufacturing Skills Certification System resource materials to help stakeholders tailor and...
Measuring Business Impact is a guide on sector-based workforce development programs, focusing on how to engage with businesses and measure the benefits of workforce development interventions. The guide is meant to address any knowledge gap workforce development practitioners may have in terms of engaging with businesses and measuring their programs' business impact. The guide argues that measuring business impact must move beyond telling good stories about the benefits of training...
This guide shares lessons learned from the 2006-2007 Strategic Partnerships for a Competitive Workforce (SPCW) initiative, in which U.S. Department of Labor Community-Based Job Training program grantees formalized Career Pathways partnerships with local education institutions, the workforce investment system, employers, State or local agencies, and other community groups. SPCW was a joint initiative of the U.S. departments of Education and Labor.
The Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 (Perkins IV) envisions that all students will achieve challenging academic and technical standards and be prepared for high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand occupations in current or emerging professions in the 21st century global economy. To this end, Perkins IV requires States to offer programs of study (POS) comprised of academic, career, and technical content that prepares students to make successful...
This business engagement toolkit is designed to help community-based organizations recruit, engage, and develop ongoing relationships with businesses in their communities with the goal of creating long-term, sustainable partnerships capable of delivering the largest impact on a community's goals for youth as part of the Ready by 21 strategy.
This guide was created to support local initiatives focused on pathways to employment for youth, but takes a global view on collaboration and partnerships that makes it applicable to other types of initiatives. Its goal is to bolster the capacity of emerging and existing collaboratives to create lasting, "needle-moving" change.
