A capable, diverse health care workforce is critical to the health of all Americans. Increasingly, the most distinctive activities to create this workforce of the future are emerging through large, multi-sector partnerships, backed by public or private funders. JFF participates in such partnerships and supports initiatives that address two needs simultaneously:
- Quality Care: To meet the demand for high-quality health care, employers—hospitals, nursing homes, primary care centers, home care providers, and public health agencies—depend upon a well-trained workforce at all levels, as well as a reliable “pipeline” of workers to fill vacancies and address shortages in critical jobs.
- Opportunity for Advancement: Health care offers potentially significant advancement opportunities for entry-level workers, including those providing direct care. These opportunities will continue for the foreseeable future, given the high demand for quality services, the difficulty of “exporting” many health care jobs, and the changing demographics in the workforce and the general population.
Jobs to Careers: Promoting Work-Based Learning for Quality Care
Jobs to Careers seeks to change the way that health care employers train, advance, and reward frontline workers, contributing to improvements in care and service delivery. This four-year demonstration will fund up to 16 partnerships; a health care employer and an educational institution must be part of each partnership, which can also include unions, Workforce Investment Boards, and community agencies. Among the desired outcomes are:
- Lasting improvements in the way that organizations train and provide career development and advancement opportunities for their frontline workers; and
- New models of education and training that incorporate work-based learning.
Jobs for the Future is the National Program Office for Jobs to Careers, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in collaboration with the Hitachi Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor.
The Allied Health Workforce Initiative is a three-year project, funded by the Boston Foundation, to respond to the present and projected shortages in the allied health workforce in Boston´s hospitals. The initiative focuses on preparing current employees—those who have chosen careers in health care—for advancement to professional programs and allied health professions. It builds on the investment of Boston´s major teaching hospitals in workforce development to create a pre-allied health educational “pipeline,” to careers in critically needed allied health professions, such as respiratory therapists, surgical technicians, and radiological technicians, among others (not including nursing). Employees in participating hospitals will prepare to enroll in allied health programs through courses of basic skills, pre-college preparatory courses, and other training, including computer skills. The program is designed to improve economic opportunities for Boston area workers, while helping hospitals to improve health care through filling vacancies, reducing turnover, and replacing costly temporary staff with permanent “homegrown” technicians.
The Annie E. Casey, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations have launched this effort to seed a national support infrastructure for workforce intermediaries. The funders have invested in five cities and one state. Partnerships in the project sites are improving access to good jobs in health care, improving the quality of these jobs, and helping employers and communities to create good jobs.
- The dual mission of the Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare, Inc., is to meet industry demand for new, skilled workers and to help build the pipeline of entry-level, health care workers. The alliance funds projects that develop customized, employer-based career pathways. These projects also provide basic skills courses and occupational training in health care careers, and they help partnering hospitals to implement career coaching.
- The Bay Area Workforce Funding Collaborative focuses on health care and life sciences; two of the region’s fastest-growing sectors, both have a large demand for new workers. The collaborative has supported such diverse projects as: establishing a regional health care training institute; coordinating health careers information and referrals among One-Stop centers; developing training curricula for high-demand occupations; and implementing a communications campaign to attract more diverse populations into health care careers.
- Hospitals and clinics in Central Texas have found it difficult both to fill vacant positions, particularly for Registered Nurses, and to expand services due to staffing constraints. Local workforce development training providers, the local community college, and county government have partnered to address these personnel needs and to raise the earning capacity of low-skilled health care workers and other low-skilled individuals who might pursue health care careers. This partnership led to the formation of the Central Texas Workforce Intermediary Initiative.
- The goal of the New York City Sectors Initiative is to create a model that links workforce development services to economic development strategies and investments. For example, the initiative has funded a health care project that provides participants with innovative, customized training, support, and employment services. The project seeks to place these individuals in high-demand, targeted occupations: as state-certified emergency medical technicians, state-certified paramedics, medical office assistants, and radiology technicians.
- The Pennsylvania Workforce Intermediaries Project is creating Industry Partnerships to enhance the skills of the state’s workforce, resulting in higher worker earnings and business revenues through improvements in productivity and the quality of services. For example, the Life Science Career Alliance helps southeastern Pennsylvania employers obtain training assistance, organizes career-awareness activities, and researches trends in health care and biotechnology. Health Careers Futures, a Pittsburgh partnership among 13 hospitals and regional providers, supports worker recruitment and retention.
SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce
SkillWorks, an Investing in Workforce Intermediaries site, is investing $13 million over five years in advocacy for the public policies and systemic infrastructure needed to support quality programming leading to long-term economic benefits for low-income, unemployed, and underemployed individuals in the Boston area.
SkillWorks, a public/private funders collaborative, targets industries offering career advancement-accessible vacancies. It supports several intermediaries focused on health care:
- The Health Care and Research Training Institute’s career ladders project focuses on Boston’s Longwood Medical and Academic Area. The effort will result in a model of workforce development services in the health care and research field, one that is agile and responsive to the changing needs of employers, employees, and community residents. It has two connected focuses: building an employment pipeline from the neighborhood into health care and research jobs; and providing multiple levels of training, education, and support to frontline workers interested in advancing into the participating employers’ areas of skill shortages.
- Partners in Career and Workforce Development, led by Partners HealthCare, addresses labor shortages in nursing and other technical occupations by providing opportunities for low-income Bostonians. Through SkillWorks, Partners is developing hybrid community college courses that integrate academic skill development with science prerequisites, and it is helping foreign-educated employees master professional-level English. In addition, career coaching helps participants take advantage of career advancement opportunities and other supports available to them during the long process of completing postsecondary training that leads to better jobs.
- The Community Health Worker Advancement Initiative seeks to create career ladders for community health workers, who perform a wide range of services that increase access to health care for underserved communities. Action for Boston Community Development, the lead partner, will direct the implementation of a Workforce Partnership that engages higher education, community health centers and other employers, and other organizations in developing a program that will help community health workers progress to family-sustaining incomes.
Resources from JFF
Community Health Worker Advancement: A Research Summary (2006): With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, JFF recommended adaptations of the SkillWorks Workforce Partnership model in order to apply that approach to career advancement for community health workers.
Creating Careers, Improving Care (2006): Commissioned by the Jacob and Valeria Langeloth Foundation, this report looks at strategies for recruiting, retaining, and advancing caregivers, specifically Certified Nursing Assistants.
Invisible No Longer: Advancing the Entry-level Workforce in Health Care (2006): Funded by the Hitachi Foundation, this report explores a variety of workforce development practices, with a focus on entry-level workers and their quest for jobs leading to rewarding careers. It examines where there is progress, where investments would pay dividends, and what lessons are emerging.
|
An Innovative Approach to Developing Entry-Level Workers 
