The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals will host a webinar on September 15, 2022 from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. CT which will cover how workforce professionals have the opportunity at every customer touch point to make an impact, even through the smallest interactions.

This webinar focuses on making excellence the standard, not the exception, and identifies strategies and tactics to help professionals become more excellent. The webinar will discuss ways to increase excellence in customer interactions, in workspaces, in emotional intelligence, in connections with partners, and in programs. Learning objectives include:

• Defining and understanding what excellence is, and what excellence is not.
• Distinguishing average and excellent, and learning strategies to pursue excellence in every customer interaction.
• Role playing, using specific situations that front line staff face, and taking that situation and implementing strategies to ensure staff are operating in excellence, even in difficult situations.

A registration fee for attendance is required.

This blog offers an array of sources for understanding special population characteristics and demographics in the labor force, and for using labor market information to help target services and design service delivery to special populations. These populations could include (but are not limited to) veterans, older workers, long term employed, or disabled individuals. Included are key workforce data sources for planning and designing services to special populations, data sources for program staff to use in service delivery, and tools and training to access and utilize data sources effectively.

Mentoring is integral to apprenticeship programs and plays a critical role in the success and retention of young apprentices. Mentors can help apprentices navigate the workplace, develop a combination of essential and technical skills, and deepen their engagement. In turn, mentors find value in developing leadership and management skills and sharing organizational insights. This fact sheet highlights the importance of mentoring in youth apprenticeship programs. It illustrates mentor roles and the ways mentors teach and advise. Also, the fact sheet provides some reflective questions mentors can ask as well as real-life challenging examples that mentors can use.

The National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse convened its annual event, Leading the DRIVE: A Fatherhood Summit on Diversity, Reentry, Inclusion, Vision and Employment, on June 15-16, 2022. At this event, there was a session entitled Employment - Innovative Approaches to Enhance the Economic Stability of Fathers and Their Families, which was moderated by Kenneth Braswell, Project Director of the Clearinghouse. This video recording of the session includes discussion from practitioners who have used innovative approaches to help fathers increase their educational qualifications, sharpen their job skills, connect with employers, and enhance the economic stability of themselves and their families.

For Black learners and workers, who too often grapple with discriminatory systems and practices in education and the workplace, professional social capital can unlock opportunities for greater economic advancement and mobility, ultimately reducing racial income, employment, advancement, and wealth gaps. This brief identifies five elements designed to help Black learners and workers build professional social capital: elevating current assets, building relationships, making connections and introductions, career onboarding, and a continuous learning journey. The brief’s authors based their conclusions on in-depth research that included a dive into the history and context of professional social capital, a comprehensive look at the programs that are doing this work and the strategies they employ, and assessments of emerging trends and areas of opportunity.

Based on the rapid size and growth of the Hispanic population, this blogpost points out how vital investment in Latino youth is to the U.S. economy. This includes early investment in degree completion to improve Latino labor market prospects and social integration, as well as family, social, and economic investment to enhance an already strong foundation of earnings, health, and parenting among Latino families with children.

Youth apprenticeship is a strategy for building a more inclusive economy by creating affordable, reliable, and equitable pathways from high school to good careers and college degrees. It is a structured work-based learning program that connects the educational needs of students with the talent needs of industry. This state policy playbook lays out several actions that can foster high-quality youth apprenticeships. Some actions include establishing new mechanisms to engage employers; reducing logistical, regulatory, and financial barriers to employer participation; and leveraging existing resources while identifying new ones.

The Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program provided education and occupational training to TANF recipients and other adults with low incomes. HPOG training is for healthcare occupations that pay well and may experience labor shortages or be in high demand. This report details common themes from interviews with working students of 14 HPOG 2.0 programs. It highlights common experiences and challenges they faced pursuing and completing their training, which include the competing demands of working to pay for household expenses and caring for family members. The report is part of a series of briefs describing lessons from HPOG 2.0 participants. The series aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of motivations for enrolling in a career pathways program; managing work, training, and life balance; and services that facilitate their success.

This brief looks at ways to assist young parenting students (ages 18–25) that are highly motivated to pursue a college education to improve their own well-being as well as their children’s. It focuses on the challenges they face in seeking higher education and services to support themselves and their families, and presents navigation services as a promising strategy that communities are using to support them in their journeys through higher education.

The U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Workforce Investment will host a webinar on July 26, 2022 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. ET as part of a series on the role of the workforce system in serving individuals with Substance Use Disorder (SUD). Guest speakers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration will present a brief overview of the prevalence of addiction and the impact of stigma on employment for persons in recovery. There will also be discussion on the value of hiring persons in recovery in general across all employment sectors as well as the value of SUD peer workers for use across the SUD care system and in other human service sectors and healthcare systems. Speakers include an employer in a recovery community center who can attest to the value of hiring SUD peer workers and their role and function in engaging people with substance use disorders and strengthening recovery capital at the individual, family, and community levels.