Foreword.

There is increasing focus in the U.S. on the importance of education and training as both a key avenue to advancement for people earning low wages and an economic development strategy for building healthy state economies. In Illinois, Women Employed launched the Illinois Career Pathways Initiative in 2003 to focus on building career pathways that would enable individuals--particularly those with low skills--to combine school and work and advance over time to better jobs and higher levels of education and training, including four-year degrees. Similar initiatives have been launched in other states, often involving partnerships of state agencies, advocacy groups, workforce agencies and intermediaries, community colleges, and community-based organizations.

In Illinois, we began this effort by focusing on the development of the first rung of the pathway--bridge programs for low-literate individuals who are locked in low-wage jobs or are unemployed. By bridge programs, we mean training to prepare adults who lack basic skills to enter and succeed in postsecondary education and training leading to career-path employment. This decision coincided with growing interest in a career pathways approach on the part of community colleges, advocacy and community-based organizations, workforce boards, and others, and the launching of the Critical Skill Shortages Initiative by the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

To broaden understanding of the potential contribution of bridge programs to workforce development, a partnership of the Workforce Boards of Metropolitan Chicago, the Chicago Jobs Council, the UIC Great Cities Institute, and Women Employed formed to sponsor two conferences in 2004 focused on developing bridge programs in several high-growth industry sectors. The Grand Victoria Foundation and the Joyce Foundation provided funding. Partnerships of community colleges, community-based organizations, workforce boards, and employers interested in creating bridge programs attended in large numbers. Attendees told us: "We want to develop bridge programs, but how?" At the same time, the Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP) was seeing the need for a how-to manual on bridge programs at the national level. CLASP approached Women Employed and the Chicago Jobs Council about developing this guide and then provided seed funding for it.

This guide is directed to bridge program developers, managers, and coordinators--that is, the individuals who are responsible for program development and implementation. They are typically based at a community college, a community-based organization, or other education or workforce agency. At the same time, the guide is rich with information useful to all bridge program partners, including employers, unions, four-year colleges, and others.

We welcome your ideas, your experiences with implementing bridge programs, and your suggestions for additional information or studies that would be helpful going forward. The guide will be available on the Web sites of Women Employed (www.womenemployed.org) and the Chicago Jobs Council (www.cjc.net). Also, information about career pathways and bridge programs will continue to be posted on the listserv of the Career Pathways Initiative (http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/CareerPathways).

This guide was a collaborative project of the Women Employed Institute, the Chicago Jobs Council, and the University of Illinois at Chicago's Great Cities Institute. Toni Henle, Director of Workforce Development Policy at the Women Employed Institute, was the project manager. The project team included Davis Jenkins, faculty fellow at the UIC Great Cities Institute, and Whitney Smith, Associate Director of the Chicago Jobs Council, and project consultants, Deborah Hagman-Shannon, DHS Consultants, and Judith Kossy, Policy Program Partners. We'd like to thank Stephanie Sommers, Safer Foundation, who contributed to the curriculum section, and Dannielle Shaw and Rachel Unruh, Women Employed staff.

The guide was underwritten by generous grants from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation and CLASP. In addition, the Ford Foundation, Grand Victoria Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, McCormick Tribune Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation, the Woods Fund of Chicago, and the Working Poor Families Project support our organizations' career pathways work. Many practitioners from Illinois community colleges and community-based organizations contributed their expertise, as did bridge program implementers at the programs profiled in the guide, workforce board staff, state policymakers, national advocates, and practitioners around the country.

We are grateful to the following people for reviewing the guide in its entirety: Julian Alssid, Workforce Strategy Center; Tina Bloomer, Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges; Tom DuBois, Instituto del Progreso Latino; Melissa Goldberg, Workforce Strategy Center; Sarah Hawker, Illinois Community College Board; Melva Hunter, Illinois AFL-CIO; Linda Kaiser, Chicago Workforce Board; Anne Keeney, Seattle Jobs Initiative; Shauna King-Simms, Kentucky Community and Technical College System; Mike Leach, Southern Good Faith Fund; Mimi Maduro, Portland Community College; Bill McMillan, City Colleges of Chicago; Mary Pepperl, Workforce Board of Northern Cook County; Erin Riehle, Greater Cincinnati Health Professions Academy and Project Search; Trish Schneider, Jefferson County Public Schools Adult Education; Sarah Stapleton, Renton Technical College; Julie Strawn, Center for Law and Social Policy; and Kim Ward, Tacoma Community College. We would also like to thank our employer reviewers: Meg Amato, Exelon; Shauna Babcock, Evanston Northwestern Healthcare; Rogercarole Rogers, Houston-Rogers Consulting; and Jim Schultz, Pretty Good Consulting. *

Thanks to the following people for reviewing special sections and early drafts of the guide: Maria Ayala, Instituto del Progreso Latino/Carreras en Salud; Sue Barauski, Adult Learning Resource Center/The Center; Cynthia Barnes, Triton College; Nancy Bellew, Bridging to Careers, Chicago Housing Authority in partnership with City Colleges of Chicago; Keith Bird, Kentucky Community and Technical College System; Kathleen Dowling, Jane Addams Resource Corporation; Ruth Ann Evans, Parkland College; Darlene Forte, Illinois Department of Human Services; Jennifer Foster, Illinois Community College Board; Margie Gonwa, LEED Council; Ben Greer, Olive-Harvey College; Karen Hunter-Anderson, Illinois Community College Board; Terry Irby, Joliet Junior College; Jean Johnson, Richard J. Daley College; Michelle Jones, Dawson Technical Institute; Rose Karasti, Chicago Jobs Council; Robert Kelly, Dawson Technical Institute; Marilou Kessler, Jewish Vocational Service Chicago; Armando Mata, Harry S. Truman College; Rachel McDonald, Central States SER-Jobs for Progress; Alex Prentzas, OAI, Inc.; Cynthia Ragusa, Illinois Department of Human Services; Robert Sheets, Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity; and Linda Uzureau, Prairie State College.

We would also like to thank the following people who were interviewed for the bridge program profiles: Elaine Baker, Community College of Denver; Cris Crowley, Tammy Hardy, and Cindy Miller, Madisonville Community College; Tom DuBois, Instituto del Progreso Latino; Terri Greenfield, Portland Community College-Southeast Center; Mike Leach, Southern Good Faith Fund; Mimi Maduro, Portland Community College; Diego James Navarro and Rock Pfotenhauer, Cabrillo College; Paula Norby and Kim Ward, Tacoma Community College; Eric Parker, Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership; Erin Riehle, Greater Cincinnati Health Professions Academy and Project Search; and Regina Stanback-Stroud, Skyline College.

Toni Henle, Women Employed Institute

Davis Jenkins, University of Illinois at Chicago Great Cities Institute

Whitney Smith, Chicago Jobs Council

Article Details

Printer friendly Cite/link Email Feedback
Author:	Henle, Toni; Jenkins, Davis; Smith, Whitney
Publication:	Bridges to Careers for Low-Skilled Adults: A Program Development Guide
Geographic Code:	1U3IL
Date:	Jan 1, 2005
Words:	1103
Next Article:	Chapter I: overview of bridge training programs.
Topics:	Adult education Services Educational organizations Services Vocational guidance Services