Southwest Partnership
Workforce Development Committee
October 4 2017
7pm 1138 Hollins St
Present
Gabe Auteri
Ellen Craven
Elizabeth Weber
Curtis Eaddy
Ruth Farfel
Kristine Balasz
Lou Packett
Khandra Sears
Southwest Palooza Update
Gabe was unable to attend, and would like to hear an update.
Curtis: interesting to put it together–went well. People had fun and learned a lot at the same time.
Next Steps with Sign in Sheets
Sign in sheet that was generated is people interested in the Committee.
Step one should be to follow up with the people who have expressed interest and to diversify the attendance at the meeting
Gabe sees the Committee’s role is to work with the membership and the community to figure out what our asks are and how we can facilitate interaction between anchors, employers, providers, and the wider community.
If they all receive a call from someone (Gabe he will invite attendees).
Do we need to have the meetings here? No, but we should pick a location and stick with it or it gets complicated.
Curtis will help out with the calls with Gabe and they will set up a time to make the calls. Curtis: what would be the next step? Gabe: to form a situation where we can represent a large group in Southwest in an involved way.
Membership
The Committee discussed ways that they could recruit more participants in the committee.
Can ask the students at the local high schools if they would be interested–we are interested in having folks from inside the partnerships.
Best way to recruit members is to talk to people we know personally and invite them to attend.
Can also connect people participating in activities like the community school focus groups to the workforce committee–and larger picture, take advantage of all meetings to recruit community members who are interested in workforce in the committee’s work.
Ruth suggested reaching out to current Southwest Works participants
Events and Calendar Updates
Committee’s Work in the Future?
Discussed the challenges of getting internships for students at the Excel Academy. Kristine’s impression is that employers prefer personal referrals, rather than ‘cold calls’. This is the kind of ask that the SWP can make.
How long should we give ourselves to do the research to figure out what the asks are?
This committee will bring in employers, provide recommendations on models for local hiring, etc, rather than directly placing community members in jobs (that’s what Southwest Works is).
Gabe suggests a six month timeline to develop the asks so that community members who are recruited to join have a decision making role.
The commercial committee will need to be our connection to the business community.
Khandra suggested asking Ben Hyman from Pigtown Mainstreet, Lou suggested Noah Smock.
Kristine asked for questions to ask her kids: suggestions included what business in the community they would like to work for, what a business that attracts you would look like, what would they like to do but don’t believe they could.
Lou talked about a listener program in St Louis that asked people what three things they could teach someone, and what three questions they would want someone to teach them.
Next Steps: Gabe and Curtis will make calls next week
Elizabeth will reach out to Mr Peters at Vivien T, and Kristine will ask the kids at Excel Academy
Ruth will connect with them on that ask, and will include it in her follow up calls.
Ruth and Rachel are already doing outreach to parents at schools and will fold that in.
