Jobs to Careers

Promoting Work-Based Learning for Quality Care

Jobs to Careers helps frontline health care workers access the skills and credential opportunities they need to advance their careers—at little to no cost to the workers. This $15.8 million initiative supports 17 partnerships of employers, educational institutions, and other organizations to:

• Create lasting improvements in the way institutions train and advance their frontline workers; and
• Test new models of education and training that incorporate work-based learning, which represents a novel approach to meeting labor force needs in health care as well as in other fields.

The initiative is sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in collaboration with The Hitachi Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor, have awarded grants to 17 partnerships of employers and educational institutions aimed at helping frontline workers advance.

The Need

As the nation’s population ages and grows more diverse, and as demand for health care increases, the United States needs stronger systems for developing both its human resources and innovative approaches to learning. A capable and diverse health and health care workforce is essential to providing for the health needs of all Americans.

Yet one group that is critical to patient care and satisfaction is often underrepresented in research and outreach initiatives within the health care system: the nearly 5 million frontline workers in the United States. They include medical assistants, health educators, laboratory technicians, substance counselors, and home health aides—all of whom provide direct patient care and client services.

Frontline workers typically:

• Earn less than $40,000 a year on average;
• Have less than a Bachelor’s-level education;
• Lack credentials that allow independent practice;
• Often receive training they receive is often limited to learning from peers and through “trial and error” experience; and
• Often hold jobs that lack clear standards and competencies, with a limited focus by supervisors on employee skill development and advancement.

These factors, combined with workers’ perceptions that their contributions to the workplace are unrecognized, are associated with high turnover and increased costs. They also may compromise the delivery of service and care.

Jobs to Careers believes that helping frontline workers advance not only benefits them and their families, but also helps their employers retain a talented and driven workforce and ensures that patients receive the highest quality care.

Key Components

• Work-based learning is a key component of an overall skill-building strategy that may also include an array of other learning approaches, such as more traditional off-site, on-site, technology-enabled, or experience-based learning.
• Career paths are developed and readily available to frontline workers.
• The employer and education partners develop and implement changes that recognize the needs of working adults and that improve access to and success in skill-building efforts by frontline workers.
• Frontline workers are recognized and rewarded as they build skills and expand knowledge necessary for their current job responsibilities or for advancing to new positions.

Sites

• Asante Health System, Medford, OR
• Baltimore Alliance for Careers in Healthcare, Baltimore, MD
• Capital Workforce Partners, Hartford, CT
• Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, New York, NY
• District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, Philadelphia, PA
• East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, Boston, MA
• Humility of Mary Health Partners, Youngstown, OH
• MS Hospital Association Health, Research & Educational Foundation, Madison, MS
• Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ
• Owensboro Community & Technical College, Owensboro, KY
• Portland Community College, Portland, OR
• SSTAR, Fall River, MA
• Tenderloin Health, San Francisco, CA
• University of Alaska, Fairbanks, AK
• Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, WA
• Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center, Waianae, HI
• Workforce Solutions – Capital Area Workforce Board, Austin, TX

For more information, contact:

• Maria Flynn, Director, Jobs to Careers, mflynn@jff.org, 617.728.4446 x186
• Sallie Petrucci George, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, spetruc@rwjf.org
• Mark Popovich, The Hitachi Foundation, mpopovich@hitachifoundation.org