This toolkit by the 100,000 Opportunities Initiative is designed to develop strong employment pathways and work opportunities for out-of-school and out-of-work youth between 16 and 24 years old. The toolkit supports community-based organizations and other intermediaries to understand regional workforce needs, including labor market data and employer demands, and the knowledge that is required to guide youth towards employment.

The federal Workforce Investment and Innovation Act (WIOA) has changed the landscape of adult education, focusing the field squarely on workforce development outcomes and programming that supports the integration of education and training (IET) and career pathways. This guide emerged from efforts to learn how eight adult education programs around the country have been integrating education and training.

The purpose of this toolkit is to guide State and local leaders to build, implement, and sustain career pathways systems and programs. The 2016 revision includes new knowledge gained from the field, plus the system’s guiding legislation from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

The goal of this clearinghouse is to inform the public workforce investment system about the value, development, and uses of competency models. A competency model is a collection of competencies that together define successful performance in a particular work setting, from Personal Effectiveness Competencies, such as ‘initiative,’ to Occupation-Specific Requirements, such as ‘Process patient admission or discharge documents.’ Competency models are a tool for Career Pathways stakeholders to communicate clearly about the competencies required for specific jobs, job groups, organizations, occupations, or industries, and a framework to develop educational offerings.

This toolkit was developed to offer insight and suggestions on strengthening existing regional workforce funder collaboratives, as well as information on creating new collaboratives. The toolkit has information on:
• The overall purpose and power of regional workforce collaboratives;
• The strength of sector initiatives and the role that the collaboratives play in strengthening these initiatives;
• Practical tips on starting, sustaining, evaluating, and growing a funder collaborative, and,
• Tips on how established collaboratives can change direction.