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The Regional IT Skills Network: Building Skill Alliances for
With support from the Ford Foundation, a three-year old Consortium of workforce development organizations in five major metropolitan regions has launched the Regional IT Skills Network. This Network is designed to build employer-led alliances that will accelerate, expand, and improve education and training for information technology (IT) occupations, especially for individuals now working in low-wage jobs without career potential. CompTIA (the Computer Technology Industry Association) is a national partner in the Regional IT Skills Network and brings deep connections with the IT industry, as well as experience in the design of IT skill development programs, and quick access to innovative training and skill development programs. The FutureWorks Company of Belmont, Massachusetts provides general facilitation support, troubleshooting, and inter-site coordination. Background: The Consortium for Regional Workforce Development In 1997, workforce development organizations in Cleveland, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Louisville established a consortium of workforce development related organizations from their regions. The lead organizations forming the Consortium are not uniform in mission or function, but each has assumed leadership responsibility in its region for reforming workforce development systems to strengthen employer involvement and promote regional approaches. These convening groups organized the Consortium because they believe they can more effectively master new demand-side strategies and practices to reform workforce development markets by working together. Teams from the participating regions have been meeting together quarterly for three years as a learning network to design new approaches, assess their progress in reform efforts, learn from national experts, probe successful ideas emerging from other regions, and compare experiences. They benchmark performance against each other and draw on each other’s specialized people and institutions. Planning for the joint development of regional IT skill alliances began in 1999. Discussions at the consortium meetings revealed a strong interest in joint project development. That emerged in the context of rapidly growing concern in each of these regions about IT skill shortages. In addition, the Consortium has learned from still scattered experiences in our own region and from others that IT occupations seem to offer enormous potential for low skilled workers to get onto a career path toward family-supporting jobs. With the right training and support, IT occupations offer unusual opportunities for the career employment of individuals whose limited educational preparation and weak attachment to the labor markets were keeping them in low wage, non-career oriented jobs. Objectives and Anticipated Outcomes Long term: The Consortium’s long-term objective is to build a new labor market intermediary organization in each of our regions — a regional alliance for skill development in information technology occupations composed of employers, education and training institutions, and workforce policy organizations. This new entity will broker connections among employers, job seekers and career seekers, and education and training providers. It will help articulate, measure, and aggregate demand, assisting employers to understand how changing technology affects their needs for various IT skills. It will help education and training providers estimate these shifting skill requirements and develop education and training systems (content, delivery, credentials, etc.) that meet employers’ changing needs.This new entity will help set priorities in the region for skill development and mobilize resources for IT education and training. This entity will also help job seekers and skill seekers better understand and navigate pathways to family supporting careers in IT. It will work to assure the emergence of coherent career ladders (based on national skill standards), demonstrating how individuals can progressively build their IT and related skills to meet career objectives. Outcomes expected from the Regional IT Skills Network include additional and better quality career opportunities for individuals (especially those with weak labor market attachment), more effective and efficient education and training providers, and higher productivity for regional employers. The five regions in the Consortium are developing these new intermediary institutions collectively. That is, these regions are working together on the design and installation of a "prototypical" institution, learning from each other's experiences and incorporating each other's best ideas. Obviously the final product will look somewhat different in each region because they must fit within different institutional environments, but the joint approach to design and organization will accelerate and strengthen the outcomes in each region. In the next year: There are four intermediate outcomes that will be achieved directly through the activities financed by the Ford Foundation grant over a 12-month period (which started in July 2000).
National impacts: The Regional IT Skills Network can have a national impact beyond these five regions by developing and modeling national skill standards, formulating comprehensive career pathways, and demonstrating new and better approaches to IT skill development. A principle aspect of this program is the identification of specific job and career opportunities in IT for workers disadvantaged by poor education and labor market connections, and the demonstration of training programs that will accomplish placement and advancement for these workers. To help facilitate this impact, the project is carefully documenting key activities, including the emergence and resolution of important barriers and opportunities. All participants in the project are working to disseminate results and lessons learned as widely as possible. The consortium will plan and conduct a major national dissemination workshop or conference at the end of this grant period. For Further Information on the Southwestern PA Regional Skills Alliance Planning Efforts Contact: Stephen M. Mitchell, PhD Director, Workforce Connections Pennsylvania Economy League Western Division 425 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1000 Pittsburgh, PA 15219-1819 Phone: 412/471-1477 ext. 114 Fax: 412/471-7080 e-mail: smitchel@accdpel.org Bill Freed, CDFI, CWDP |