PCW Cited in Stanford Social Innovation Review Blog Series

PCW was cited in a four-part blog series in the Stanford Social Innovation Review on the efforts of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation to support "backbone" organizations to advance collective impact. Click here for the series: Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact.

Local Efforts Featured in Bloomberg News Article

The career pathway programs developed by the Health Careers Collaborative of Greater Cincinnati were featured in a national article by Bloomberg News on employers investing in incumbent worker training. Here is the article: Companies Say 3 Million Unfilled Positions in Skill Crisis.

Tri-State Workforce Partnership Earns National Award

 CINCINNATI (6/29/2012) – Partners for a Competitive Workforce received the Chairman’s Award for Exemplary Workforce Collaborative during the National Fund for Workforce Solutions’ second annual meeting June 19 at the downtown Hyatt Hotel.

The partnership, managed by United Way of Greater Cincinnati with major support from National Fund for Workforce Solutions and local funders, was recognized for its demonstrated success and progress in supporting workforce partnerships, implementing a well-defined systems change strategy, engaging key stakeholders, and putting in place a sustainable strategy.

“Partners for a Competitive Workforce was recognized as an exemplary collaborative because of their achievements in transforming how low-wage workers acquire the skills they need to obtain good careers,” said Fred Dedrick, National Fund for Workforce Solutions executive director. “They are a leader in this work and their ambitious goals move the field forward.”



“Our partners that have come together through Partners for a Competitive Workforce are proving that when many organizations join together across sectors, across the region to tackle the skills gap, we can achieve breakthrough results for employers and workers,” said John Prout, chair of Partners for a Competitive Workforce and president and CEO of TriHealth, Inc. “This national award is a great recognition of the strength of our partners.”

The Chairman’s Award is presented to a collaborative that has a clear vision and follows a clear regional workforce development strategy. The collaborative must also use labor market information and other intelligence on the regional economy to shape and form its strategy.

The focus of the National Fund’s annual meeting, which convened roughly 250 employers and practitioners from 32 regions across the country, is to recognize and build on the success in the National Fund Collaboratives and Partnerships sites. Participants engaged with employers, learned new ideas to promote systems change, recognized exemplary performance and shared lessons learned among the National Fund programs.



 

Prout and Dedrick Op Ed: Worker training key to local economy

John Prout, chairman of Partners for a Competitive Workforce and President/CEO of TriHealth, Inc., and Fred Dedrick, Executive Director of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions, authored an op-ed that ran in the Cincinnati Enquirer on June 18, 2012 titled, "Worker training key to local economy." Click here for the article.

"Cincinnati is showing how communities can address a local mismatch between what skills employers need and the available workforce...Data coming out of Cincinnati show that training programs can be developed that both deliver a return on investment to employers and create career paths for workers...The Cincinnati response is not the full answer to the national skills gap problem. It is proof, however, that communities can develop their own answers. That’s what it is going to take to get this economic recovery moving."

WCPO: Unique job training preps people for construction work

WCPO Channel 9 ran a great story on the pre-apprenticeship training program run by Urban League and Allied Construction Industries, both partners in the Construction Career Pathways Partnership.  Click here or see the video below.

Health Careers Collaborative Featured in CareerSTAT Guide

CareerSTAT is an initiative of the National Fund for Workforce Solutions to document and endorse the business case for investments in frontline hospital workers and to establish an employer-led advocacy council to promote investments that yield strong skill development and career outcomes for low-wage, frontline hospital workers. The HCC's Bill Lecher of Cincinnati Children's and Alan Jones of UC Health (retired) serve on the CareerSTAT Leadership Team. Check out the CareerSTAT Guide: CareerSTAT: A Guide to Making the Case for Investing in the Frontline Hospital Workforce (2012)

Local Leaders Present at National Association of Workforce Boards Forum

Leaders from the Cincinnati region presented on local best practices at the national conference of the National Association of Workforce Boards in Washington, DC.

• Reaching Our Youth about Career Pathways, presented by Sherry Kelley Marshall of SWORWIB, Jeff Weber of Workforce One, and Bart Brown of Indiana Region 9
• Collecting and Using Common Data to Drive System-Wide Continuous Improvement, presented by Sherry Kelley Marshall of SWORWIB, and Ross Meyer of PCW

Pete Strange Op-Ed: “Skills gap is keeping workers jobless"

Pete Strange, Chairman of Messer Inc. and member of the PCW Council, authored an excellent op-ed in today’s Business Courier, titled “Skills gap is keeping workers jobless.” The op-ed calls for Congress to invest in workforce, and highlights our work. Click here for the op-ed.

SWORWIB and Health Careers Collaborative featured in U.S. GAO Report

The Southwest Ohio Region WIB and the Health Careers Collaborative was featured by the U.S. Government Accountability Office as one of 14 national best practices in collaborations between workforce boards and employers. Click here for the full report (see page 42 of the PDF for the Cincinnati case study).

Cincinnati Featured in Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Article

The National Fund for Workforce Solutions, which supports the work of PCW, was featured in an article in the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia's quarterly journal "Cascade." Cincinnati was one of two sites highlighted in the article. Click here for the article.