I'm currently working with the PA Workforce Development Board Interagency Workgroup to develop the federally required four-year state plan for Pennsylvania. Our current plan expires in 2020.
The plan for 2020 is broken down into five major categories:
- Career Pathways
- Sector Strategies and Employer Engagement
- Youth
- Continuous Improvement of the Workforce Development System
- Strengthening the One-Stop Delivery System
The DOC is integral in four of the five categories and will be serving as representatives on all committees with the exception of Youth. Youth is focusing on strategies for in-school and out-of-school youth and how the Department of Education can connect with them and the workforce to gain meaningful employment.
Here are the four categories that impact us:
Career Pathways: Dorenda Hamarlund, the DOC's Career Pathways manager, has been doing significant work in the Career Pathways portion, and her work as been the topic of several DOC podcasts. All the work that she's been doing is integrated into the current plan, and I will work with her to ensure that the career pathways work is built upon and enhanced for the next plan submittal.
Sector Strategies and Employer Engagement: This goal is to broaden our connection between PA CareerLink and the workforce programs and services to labor market demands. This includes specific goals geared towards the veteran's population who are basic skills deficient. I'm working to define what that looks like for the DOC but, my goal is to enhance the veteran's specific goals to ensure that we are equipping our incarcerated veterans with skills for use on the street and that the workforce is seeing that population as a good candidate for their company and will continue to provide proper training while at work.
Continuous Improvement of the Workforce Development System: The goal is that the DOC is capturing and sharing relevant data with other agencies to make data-driven decisions. All agencies are participating in this goal so that we can share relevant data and enhance knowledge/outcomes. As you know, many of the agencies have data that the others could utilize, but it's not easily shared across agencies.
Strengthening the One-Stop Delivery System: Utilizing PA CareerLink appropriately and focusing on customer service. These goals have yet to be defined, but I'm hoping to work in how we can ensure that staff in CareerLink are properly versed in jobs and services for reentrants.