At the Community Livability and Public Safety Committee meeting on Wednesday, Olympia's Economic Development Director Mike Reid provided an update on innovative workforce programs launched in response to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city partnered with local organizations in 2021 through Olympia Strong to develop a two-year plan to build an inclusive, resilient, and dynamic post-pandemic economy. The plan included over 20 actions, with one expanding career pathway opportunities through pre-funded training contracts.
Reid explained that in developing the Olympia Strong economic recovery programs, they drew from the One Community Plan to help guide their focus on expanding career pathways and training opportunities through initiatives like Journey to Jobs and the Olympia Career Hub. The contracts worked directly to implement the workforce development strategies.
In Journey to Jobs or J2J, Reid said the program is a low-barrier workforce program for homeless individuals. The city entered into a contract with Pacific Mountain Workforce Development and subcontracting Valeo Vocation.Reid said the program had seen 93 enrollments of homeless individuals. Of those numbers, they had 65 participants who worked as hire crew, a low-barrier workforce crew that was paid for their time to participate. They had 11 participants secure permanent housing, 28 participants received paid internship programs, and 22 achieved full-time employment.
Shannon Hassan, director of Social Enterprise at Valeo Vocation, said the J2J aimed to connect Olympia residents experiencing homelessness with career development, employment, and training opportunities through a three-phase approach.
The first phase was a "hire crew" that provided subsidized wages to allow participants to acclimate to the workforce while earning an income. Individuals could also receive on-the-job training in the second phase.
J2J served any individuals experiencing homelessness and focused on workforce participation and comprehensive support services. The goal was to help people find stable housing and long-term, self-sufficient employment.
Hassan highlighted one success story - a formerly homeless woman who struggled with addiction. After completing the Hire Crew and entering recovery, she obtained a staffing role at Trident Seafoods through J2J. She was later housed and employed as an environmental technician.
Reid explained that through the Olympia Career Hub, the focus was placed on career pathway assistance and delivering construction boot camp training. The city collaborated with the Thurston Chamber of Commerce, Pacific Mountain Workforce Development, and ANEW to conduct the boot camp training. The boot camp sessions occurred in 10 cohorts and had 92 graduates. Trainees earned 301 professional certificates, such as flagger certification, forklift certification, and OSHA-10 occupational safety training.
"We coordinated a hiring event where we brought in local businesses. We wanted to make sure that we were not only investing in the training, but we are taking it a step further and helping these individuals connect with local businesses and local employment opportunities," Micah Pong of the Thurston County Chamber of Commerce said.
Reid added that out of the construction boot camp graduates they could contact after the program ended, over 80% reported being employed.
As part of the Career Hub, Pong said the program included Career Map Meetups, which were career exploration events coordinated with local high schools and South Puget Sound Community College.
Pong explained that these events typically small panel discussions with professionals from different industries. The goal was to give students exposure to diverse career pathways by having local businesspeople discuss their career journeys and opportunities in fields that interested the students.
Throughout the Career Hub initiative, a total of 521 students attended these Career Map Meetup events to learn directly from community members about in-demand careers available locally.
As part of its effort to support local businesses, the Olympia Career Hub offered several workforce development workshops for companies.
Pong described "Strength Finder," a workshop focused on team building and leadership skills.
Another workshop was called "Unlocking the hidden talent pipeline." This recruitment strategies training provided best practices and resources to empower employers to consider hiring individuals from diverse backgrounds they may not have previously recruited, such as those with criminal histories or limited work experience.
Narcan administration training, Pong said, taught front-line staff from downtown businesses how to administer Naloxone (Narcan) to prevent death from opioid overdose.
There were 156 attendees for these trainings, and 187 businesses were engaged.
Responding to Mayor Dontae Payne's question about the next steps, Reid suggested continuing to build upon the successful partnerships and programs developed.
Reid noted that Valeo Vocations will incorporate the Journey to Jobs model into the city's new operations at Plum Street Village. He said discussions are ongoing about adapting these lessons to additional settings.
"I feel confident that if there was a need or a desire on our part to invest again, the infrastructure is in place there that we can push the button again if we need to. We've even talked about other industries and fields beyond construction if we want to explore those. So, we have a partner now that has built and flexed that muscle because of some of the investments that we've made," Reid said.
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BobJacobs
It would be hard to object to the objective of these programs.
However, what is the city of Olympia doing in this business? Don't we have enough other publicly funded programs operated by other, existing organizations that can do this work -- or are already doing it?
Bob Jacobs
2 days ago Report this