Southwest Partnership
Workforce Development Committee
May 16 2018
7pm
Present
Caryn York
Ellen Levy
Ivan Leshinsky
Lou Packett
Khandra Sears
Kwane Wyatt
Aramark hiring event at Paul’s Place
NPower Graduation May 12th–looking for internships for students
SoWeBo Sports Authority–new group around sports, recreation fitness. Event May 29th 6-8pm kick off event.
Greater Baltimore Committee recently released the State of the Region Report discussing the health and wealth of the region. What’s happening regionally is opposite to what is having in the Southwest Partnership neighborhoods.
626 Debrief and Next Steps
Successful event–good turnout and good service mix.
Legal services: 115 participants sought and secured legal services–expungement (97–227 charges eligible for expungement), wills, landlord-tenant issues
Feedback: very positive, main question was when it was happening again, questions about SWP, know more about workforce development committee happenings, requests for services and support around education (GED, pre-GED, training)
Paul’s Place: 9-10 received vital document assistance, many more received guidance on what they need
Paul’s Place, resume writing, and legal services were the most popular vendor areas
The committee discussed how to advocate for changing the narrative around why community members are not employed–encouraging employers to adjust their hiring practices. The Workforce Roundtable could be a tool for helping to advocate for employers–first step needs to be educating employers on how their hiring practices are making it difficult to hire from the community.
Summer/Fall Activities
Have a conversation on workforce from an educational perspective with employers and education providers.
Invite employers to attend workforce development committee meetings to talk about their hiring practices
Come up with metrics on successful workforce development programs
Should start thinking about when to schedule next resource fair–Franklin Square would be a good neighborhood. Lou will scope out locations with Elizabeth.
Education Committee is hosting events discussing race and racism and their impact on education, employment, housing, health–workforce development committee should have a role in the planning of the event
SoWeBo Fest
Committee does not have to do an activity, could just have a tent for the SWP as a whole that folks could come out to and visit
Next Meeting
There will be an election of a chair, talking about October event, talking about employment panel
