Community college students are an untapped reservoir of talent and including them in social work education aligns with the values of the profession. Yet these students encounter formidable obstacles on the path from a 2-year degree to an affordable social work degree. In this article, we describe the systems thinking underlying a newly instituted…

This report shows how insights gained from system dynamics modeling and the U.S. STEM Undergraduate Model® can help inform the Navy's strategy to grow a robust civilian workforce that is strongly invested with Navy-relevant STEM skills and ready to contribute to the next generation of Naval innovation. This work positions the Navy to serve a…

The "System Strategic Plan for the California Community Colleges" provides a comprehensive road map for restoring student access and improving student success. The Plan addresses the major demographic, economic and educational challenges that California will face over the coming decades. It presents clear system goals, specific…

Knowledge supply chains are market-driven, competency-based systems in which education and training are aligned to help employers, educators, workers, and students navigate more effectively in the global economy. Three key trends warrant attention in today's global economy: (1) knowledge and skill needs are escalating and changing rapidly; (2)…

This paper provides an overview of MDC's Connecting People to Jobs program, which uses a partnership approach to move people into living-wage jobs. The paper includes lessons learned and recommendations for grantmakers. (Contains 11 footnotes.)

In 1994, Alaska began the process of using its grant funds from the National School-to-Work Opportunities Act to design a school-to-work system to meet the following objectives: obtain commitment and involvement from Alaska's governor and officials involved in human resource development; develop an implementation plan for a statewide system to…

This document contains the reports on audits of the one-stop systems in California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New York, and Vermont. The overall audit conclusions were as follows: (1) the states have made substantial efforts toward forming new comprehensive workforce investment systems as mandated by the Workforce Investment Act (WIA); (2)…

The American Hospital Association's Commission on Workforce for Hospitals and Health Systems identified the workforce development related challenges facing health care institutions and issued a series of recommendations regarding how hospital leaders can build a thriving workforce. The change strategies identified by the commission were as…

This document explains the concept of sectoral employment strategies and profiles 13 successful work force development programs based on such strategies. The first half of the document examines the increasing need for sectoral employment strategies and their key characteristics, role in achieving systemic change in work organizations, and…

This document profiles the following 13 regional partnerships that together constitute Arizona's school-to-work (STW) system: Cochise STW Partnership; Coconino County STW Partnership; Eastern Arizona STW Partnership; East Valley STW Initiative; Mohave Workforce Development Partnership; Northeast Valley School to Work Consortium; Northland School…

This collection of essays, which is arranged in four sections, concerns flexibility in the Vocational Education and Training (VET) systems of Europe. The first section, "Introduction," includes the following chapter: "Shaping Conditions for a Flexible VET" (Nieuwenhuis et al.). The second section, "Institutional and…

This document examines selected issues related to collaboration between the welfare and work force development systems under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, Welfare-to-Work grant program, and Workforce Investment Act of 1998 (WIA). The document begins with a brief overview of how recent policy developments have created…

The Workforce Investment Act represents a total customer-driven overhaul of the U.S. job training system that will help employers obtain needed workers and empower job seekers to obtain the training needed for the jobs they want. The Department of Labor will implement the Workforce Investment Act in cooperation with the Department of Education.…

This compendium, which is intended as a resource for state and local policymakers and practitioners to use in addressing work force development issues in their states, describes successful projects based on various work force development strategies in the areas of collaboration, empowerment, and systematic change. Some of the models included were…

This document presents 22 tools that were developed for use in a five-module training package to assist employment and training service providers comply with the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 and develop a one-stop training and employment services system. Each tool addresses a different aspect of the process of developing a one-stop delivery…