Ensuring that everyone in this nation is equipped with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed is crucial in our competitive, global economy. One key part of this effort is ensuring that young people and adults of all skill levels who are transitioning to new careers or looking to enhance their careers receive the supports they need to do so. Too often, though, our systems for helping hard-working Americans acquire marketable and in-demand skills can be complex and difficult to navigate for students, job seekers, and employers alike. The good news is that career pathways are a promising solution to that challenge. Career pathways are integrated collections of strategic programs and services that help students and job seekers transition from education to employment. They connect the necessary adult basic education, occupational training, postsecondary education, career and academic advising, and support services so that students and workers can successfully prepare for, obtain, and progress in their career.
Career pathways have received strong and consistent support over the past decade from philanthropic partners, and both government and philanthropy have invested in research and demonstration projects that produce promising practices and evidence of what is working and where.
Across the nation, support from the business community has also been key to successful local efforts. Career pathways demand private sector engagement to ensure that participants are training for and getting experience in real jobs with real advancement opportunities. By working together, state and community partners can create career pathway systems with on-ramps, bridges, and stackable credentials, to help close the gap between vacancies and the numbers of under- and unemployed youth and adults eager to get to work.
While career pathways are not a new concept to our communities, convening 12 agencies across the federal government to work together to promote career pathways is historic and is critical for promoting further scale.
In April 2012, the U.S. Departments of Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services formed a federal partnership and issued a letter of joint commitment to promote the use of career pathways to assist youth and adults in acquiring valuable skills and industry-recognized credentials through better alignment with employers of education, training and employment, and human and social services.
Building on that work, we have expanded support to multiple agencies to foster better coordination of programs and services. Today the Obama Administration is demonstrating a strengthened commitment to promote career pathways, providing updated information and resources from the expanded federal partnership to help states, regions, local entities and tribal communities integrate service delivery across federal and state funding streams. While state and local partners build career pathway systems, at the federal level, we recognize that we can support our partners’ efforts through our policy, performance, and funding.
Read and learn more here:
http://www.hhs.gov/blog/2016/05/09/career-... Be sure to share this information with your Teachers, Students, classmates, Cafeteria Workers, neices, nephews, neighbors, community, Faith Leaders, etc.
Posted By: agnes levine
Tuesday, May 10th 2016 at 2:11PM
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