Anchor Institution Referral Update Process:
- 12 people from the community have been referred directly to jobs at the hospital or the university (mostly from Paul’s Place).
- UMB’s local hiring commitment is to work with workforce providers in the SWP area and Promise Heights Neighborhoods (Upton, Sandtown Winchester, and Druid Heights). Anyone who is referred to jobs at the university which they are qualified for will be referred to the HR department and is guaranteed an interview.
- UMMS commitment is similar–they will work with area workforce organizations to identify individuals who are un- or underemployed and who are qualified for available positions. All referred community applicants will have an in person initial screening, and if they would be successful in the position they will have an interview with the hiring manager.
- The benefit to community members comes from the in person interview, which would be challenging to get otherwise, as well as the opportunity for them to discuss their qualifications in person and receive individualized feedback.
- The anchors will provide support in terms of mock interviews and reviewing resumes.
- Lisa wants to know if the Workforce Roundtable is ok with the anchors giving the local hiring opportunities to people who are referred from workforce programs in the area who are not residents of the target communities. Lisa will write a description of the initiative to share with the partners.
- Paul’s Place and Bon Secours do have geographic constraints for many of their programs, but could be serving and referring residents who no longer live in the area. St Peter’s has clients from all over and it would be difficult to not refer clients from outside the area.
- The Roundtable decided that anyone referred by the workforce partners in the target communities should be given the local hiring benefits, but that the program should track residences to ensure that at least 50% of people who are referred live in the target communities.
Training Program Recruitment Update:
- Training Tuesdays: are an opportunity for the Southwest Partnership to talk about training programs, funded through the MOED One Baltimore For Jobs grant that the SWP has partnered with. There has been one, at the Employment Connection Center, which went very well and had about 15 participants. The staff at the Employment Connection Center were able to offer information about other available training programs that met participants’ interests. The next Training Tuesday will be held Tuesday, February 23rd, at 2pm at the UMB Community Engagement Center (1 N. Poppleton St). Training Tuesdays will be held every second Tuesday at 2pm at the Employment Connection Center (1410 Bush St) and every fourth Tuesday at 2pm at the Community Engagement Center (1 N. Poppleton St).
- Bon Secours is looking to have information sessions every other week and it makes sense to bring folks to Training Tuesdays rather than having their own sessions. They are now recruiting for their CNA/GNA program and need to send information out. The first cohort is almost finished–they had 160 applicants for the program and 20 were accepted.
- Baltimore City Community College has three free training programs and will send the SWP information about them to be included in the Training Tuesday materials:
- Warehouse Technician program on the eastside at Wolfe and Preston. They have a mini warehouse and provide hands on training and certification.
- Hospital distribution which is a partnership with Johns Hopkins.
- Cyber Pathways Across Maryland which provides non credit IT training that prepares participants for courses at other community colleges.
- The SWP is developing an easy way to track people who are referred to programs. The Roundtable suggested providing referred community members with tracking numbers on a handout (with SWP and other logos) that they could bring to the training programs. The programs could collect the referral information and provide them to the SWP. Paul’s Place and the Employment Connection Center keep track of the people that they refer to programs. Civic Works also keeps track of where participants were referred from, and has some in the program who were referred from the SWP area. Lisa and Elizabeth will follow up with Eric, Ellen, and Wellington directly to work on a system.
Pigtown Clothing Store Opportunity
- Pigtown Mainstreet has approached the SWP with an opportunity to partner on a pop-up shop on Washington Blvd selling extra clothing, fabric, and sewing inventory. The partnering programs would receive a portion of the profits but would have to staff the store. Some of the programs were interested, and will contact Elizabeth within the next few days if they are interested in pursuing the opportunity.
YouthWorks Programs
- The SWP is partnering with the UMB Office of Community Engagement to hold a YouthWorks program for up to 14 young people from the area who will work with the neighborhood associations on a project over the course of the five week session. YouthWorkers will have an opportunity to earn digital badges in wordpress, graphic design, and community organizing skills.
- CUPs Coffeehouse is developing a YouthWorks program that will serve up to 50 young people and will provide a rotating schedule of life skills enrichment, work experience, and community service
- Bon Secours will also be having a YouthWorks program for 30 young people tracked into three areas: the hospital, landscaping through the Clean and Green program, and running a snowball stand. They have received a grant from the Casey Foundation to take the snowball stand to scale and are working with Coppin to create a Youth Entrepreneurial program.
- Lou is interested in reaching out to the summer programs the SWP will be working with on the enrichment project to see if they would be interested in YouthWorkers. Elizabeth will reach out to the programs.
- Young people interested in YouthWorks will be able to sign up at the CEC. Suggested recruitment strategies for all YouthWorks programs include the faith community. Lou will make connections to churches.
Provider Survey
- Almost every provider has completed it. Lisa will be in touch to set up conversations.
Future Grant Opportunities
- There have been a number of RFP’s that the Roundtable could have been interested in, and it’s important to be in front of them. There will be another One Baltimore For Jobs RFP coming up that will focus on community outreach, especially to young people. There are community members with deep connections to area young people who could be part of a partnership.
- UMB and UMMC have been talking about Adult Basic Education for a while–because UMMC has a career ladder set up they have a trainer on staff who is willing to work out of the Community Engagement Center and UMB and UMMC are working out how to make that happen.
- BCCC is starting to build out bridge classes for students with very basic skills. They could be held at sites in the community but there would be a charge.
- Lynn Farrow at Goodwill is looking into starting an adult highschool but is in need of a lot of space–it would need to have daycare on site and be the size of a school.
The next meeting will be March 17th at 3pm at a location TBD–potentially at Bon Secours.
