Discuss With Us! NAEFL Week Featured Career Pathways Resources

In celebration of National Adult Education and Family Literacy Week, Career Pathways COP is hosting a discussion of two resources, each of which reports on successful career pathways programs in six different community colleges.  The goal is to get us thinking and discussing the characteristics these programs have in common and also the variations utilized to match the needs of the various colleges, the populations being served, and the careers for which the programs provide the education.  The chosen resources are  Farther, Faster: Six Promising Programs Show How Career Pathway Bridges Help Basic Skills Students Earn Credentials that Matter and Courses to Employment: Partnering to Create Paths to Education and Careers.  As you check these resources out, consider these questions: "What are the common threads that seem essential to these programs?" and "How have these programs adapted to their situations?"  As a starter, I will suggest that enhanced student support services seems to be a common theme. Another would be contextualized instruction. I will consolidate the suggestions and post them in an updated list periodically.  I'm sure there are COP members who have experience with these or similar programs, and I hope they will share their experiences and expertise.  Anyone should feel free to ask questions and/or share thoughts about any aspect in this discussion.  Thanks in advance for participating!

Comments

Dear Donna

Thank you for featuring Courses to Employment: Partnering to Create Paths to Eiducation and Careers this week in your discussion.  The Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative continues to see the value of nonprofit-community college partnerships in supporting student success in the classroom and in the labor market.  This field of practice between these two institutions is growing quickly.  One example of that is the Goodwill Community College Career Collaboration (C4) project that aims to identify, document and grow partnerships between Goodwill affiliates and community colleges.  At last count, they had identified several dozen Goodwill and community college partnerships around the country. 

To build support for this field of practice, the AspenWSI is launching a nationwide survey of these partnerships.  Results will be used to draw attention to the important roles nonprofit organizations can play and are playing in helping community college students complete their education and obtain employment. Survey results will inform policy makers, philanthropic leaders and other stakeholders about this growing and important field of practice and how it can be better supported, and with leaders at nonprofit organizations and community colleges to inform their efforts to create new partnerships or improve existing collaborations.

In this first stage of our survey, we are surveying the nonprofit side of these partnerships.  If anyone is a nonprofit organization engaged in this type of work, please take our survey here.   We will survey community colleges at a later date.

Matt Helmer

Senior Research Associate

AspenWSI

Thanks for bringing us up to date on what the Aspen Institute Workforce Strategies Initiative is working on, Matt. (Matt, one of the authors of one of our featured resources, and Julie Strawn from CLASP, the author of the other resource, have both agreed to follow our discussion this week and fill in with any needed clarifications to the studies.)  Now that those of you who are involved in non-profits partnering with community colleges have been "called out", I hope you will not only participate in the WSI survey that Matt has told us about, but also share in this discussion, letting the rest of us know what you've been up to and what successes and difficulties you are having in implementing these career pathways.