1. Purpose.To educate workforce leaders about building
new and successful partnerships between the WIA system and faith-based and
community organizations (FBCO), and to announce a new grant opportunity for
workforce investment boards (WIB) that successfully demonstrate the ability to
partner with FBCOs.
2. Background.The U.S. Department of Labor's (Department
or DOL) Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Center or CFBCI) was
created when President Bush signed Executive Order 13198 on January 29,
2001.The purpose of the Center, and a
key component of the President's Management Agenda for the entire Department,
is to remove statutory, regulatory, and procedural barriers that prevent FBCOs
from partnering with the WIA system.As
legal and regulatory barriers have been removed, ETA and CFBCI are increasingly
focusing on ways to integrate FBCOs into the WIA system at the local level.
In 2001, an audit by the Department revealed that
both faith-based and community-based grassroots organizations are often
under-utilized as partners in the workforce investment system.As a result, the CFBCI launched the Touching
Lives and Communities (TLC) pilot project in 2003 to bridge the divide between
the local WIBs and FBCOs in Memphis, Tennessee, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin.After a year of engaging the WIBs and FBCOs
in those cities, the project has yielded valuable strategies for building new
partnerships where few or none had existed in the past.This notice requests that states and WIBs
utilize the enclosed materials from the TLC pilot project and other studies to
incorporate FBCOs into local WIB activities.
3. Building Partnerships.The
TLC pilot project provides the workforce investment system with innovative
models and strategies for successful partnerships with FBCOs.In both Memphis and Milwaukee, the
Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and CFBCI found that FBCOs
constitute a large, untapped workforce development resource.The TLC project bridged the gaps-in
language, expertise, and culture-between the WIBs and FBCOs to create new
partnerships that are helping Memphis and Milwaukee meet their workforce
development goals and objectives.The
experience in Memphis and Milwaukee also highlights new opportunities for
direct collaboration between FBCOs and employers that are seeking motivated,
responsible, and reliable employees.FBCOs in these cities are being asked to assist job seekers in acquiring
the life management, employment enhancement, and readiness skills needed
to benefit from the vocational or technical services offered at One-Stop
Career Centers or to enter and succeed in the job market.
This
notice contains three attachments that will provide workforce system leaders
with strategies, lessons, and creative ideas for working with FBCOs to help
hard-to-serve individuals in their communities.
The first attachment (Appendix
A) is a report that captures the lessons-learned and best practices from the
TLC pilot project in Memphis and Milwaukee.
The second attachment (Appendix
B) is a report that highlights successful access point models used by DOL grant
awardees in Eastern Florida and North Dakota.These reports are summarized below.Additional information taken from an evaluation of ETA's 2002 grassroots
FBCO grantees is also included in this section.
The third attachment (Appendix
C) is a legal "dos and don'ts" document produced by the White House Office
on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to educate the public about the
modern legal guidelines that govern working partnerships between government
entities and FBCOs.
A
list of ETA grant awardees and their project summaries that show the broad
range of services being provided by FBCOs throughout the nation can be found on
the CFBCI Web site at www.dol.gov/cfbci.
Touching
Lives and Communities Final Report (Appendix A)
In
2003, CFBCI and a team of experts developed a model for collaboration and
integration between FBCOs and local WIBs in Memphis and Milwaukee.The resulting TLC pilot project had two
purposes: (1) offer workforce development services to hard-to-serve populations
by leveraging the assets (services and access) of FBCOs in urban, low-income
neighborhoods; and (2) connect FBCO service providers and partners to the
workforce investment system by including them in the decision-making and
management processes of the WIBs and One-Stop Career Centers.Appendix A contains the TLC final report
that summarizes the partnership process and the lessons-learned from this
yearlong effort.
The following list contains some of the key
lessons-learned in Memphis and Milwaukee:
When the momentum is built
around a vision for addressing community needs, businesses, FBCOs, and
community leaders will provide their time, passion, and commitment to move the
collaboration project forward.
In so far as is appropriate,
WIBs can design new funding initiatives with current funding from WIA and other
programs that can both address the needs of businesses in finding skilled
workers and capitalize on a connection to the community and the strengths of
grassroots organizations.
Collaborations between the
workforce system and FBCOs involve including FBCOs in direct funding and/or
contracting opportunities.
It is important to build
relationships between currently funded entities and grassroots providers.This can lead to appropriate subcontracting
opportunities and general collaboration in targeted neighborhoods.
Building working relationships
between grassroots organizations and One-Stop Career Center staff can result in
valuable opportunities to reach hard-to-serve individuals by encouraging mutual
referrals and resource sharing.
Access
Point Model Final Report (Appendix B)
In
2002, ETA invested more than $17.5 million in grants to twelve states, twenty
grassroots FBCOs, and nine intermediary FBCOs.The goal was to create access to One-Stop services for individuals who
traditionally do not utilize those resources and to increase the number of
FBCOs that are committed partners in the One-Stop system.That same year, ETA issued Training and
Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 17-01, which requested that states incorporate
grassroots FBCOs into WIA activities and programs.TEGL 17-01 may be found on the ETA Web site at www.doleta.gov.
This
investment by ETA has produced valuable models for WIB and One-Stop system
leaders to further the goals of the local workforce system.Appendix B describes the different models
that ETA grant awardees employ to create universal access to One-Stop
services.The first model utilizes
FBCO locations as "access points" to the One-Stop Career Center system.This model is best demonstrated by ETA
grantee United Way of Brevard County, Florida, which established "Mini-One-Stop
Career Centers" in FBCOs in high-poverty communities that are beyond the
geographic reach of Brevard Joblink Career Centers.Several other state and intermediary grant awardees have
implemented different variations of this model.
The
second model creates a resource sharing system that helps FBCO customers access
One-Stop resources, and visa versa.This creative model was developed by Job Service North Dakota, an ETA state
grantee.Through Project SHARE (Sharing
How Awareness Empowers Others), North Dakota established more than 400 new
partnerships with FBCOs by creating a comprehensive online resources sharing
network and conducting substantial outreach.
These
models are available to workforce system leaders to design strategies to
conduct outreach, fill skills gaps, and meet the unique training needs of
hard-to-serve populations in their states and local areas.
Preliminary
Evaluation of ETA's 2002 FBCO Grassroots Grant Awardees
A
preliminary evaluation of these grant awardees conveys three key lessons.First, grassroots FBCOs can provide an
intense level of personalized care, service and commitment.Second, the success of many grassroots
service providers is linked directly to their ability to network with other
similar organizations, employers, local WIBs, and the One-Stop system.Third, grassroots grantees require more
technical assistance than larger non-profit organizations to fulfill the
data collection and other administrative requirements that accompany Federal
grants.Each lesson provides workforce
system leaders with important information about how to assist grassroots
FBCOs with what they do best-provide quality personalized care and job readiness
training to individuals in need-while meeting their own workforce goals and
objectives.
4. Grant Opportunity.The
Department encourages WIBs to begin partnering more effectively with
FBCOs.With that goal in mind, ETA will
offer a unique competitive grant in March 2004 to WIBs that have successfully
demonstrated the ability to form working partnerships with FBCOs.The grant will build upon successful ETA
grants from Program Years (PY) 2001 and 2002 that focused on the use of
intermediaries to build partnerships between FBCOs and local One-Stop
systems.The PY 2001-2002 grant
solicitations are listed on the CFBCI Web site at www.dol.gov/cfbci.The end goal of this new grant opportunity
is to encourage WIBs to form long-term partnerships with FBCOs to develop and
sustain service delivery mechanisms in order to provide enhanced employment
opportunities for hard-to-serve populations, including ex-offenders, welfare
recipients and out-of-school youth.
Potential
grant applicants will:
- Create new financial and non-financial
relationships with FBCOs and show how the WIB will sustain relationships
beyond the grant cycle.
- Identify up to three separate businesses or
business sectors that will collaborate with the local WIB, One-Stop
system, and FBCOs to provide a number of jobs with long-term career
opportunities and hire qualified employees from disadvantaged
neighborhoods.
- Identify specific census tract(s)
(neighborhoods) with high unemployment rates where current and potential
FBCO resources (resource map) help hard-to-serve individuals prepare for
and sustain employment.
5. Action Required.Please
make this information available to appropriate program staff.
6. Inquiries.Questions regarding the Touching Lives and
Communities project or any other information included in this Training and
Employment Notice should be directed to Erica Sager at 202-693-6450 or Sager.Erica@dol.gov.ETA and CFBCI will provide additional
information throughout 2004 to support workforce boards in developing
relationships with FBCOs and the One-Stop system to help serve local workforce
and employer needs.
7. Attachments.
Appendix A:Experiences
from the Field: Fostering Workforce Development Partnerships with Faith-Based
and Community Organizations
Appendix B: Bridging
the Gap: Meeting the Challenge of Universal Access Through Faith-Based and
Community Partnerships
Appendix C: Guidance
for Faith-Based and Community Organizations on Partnering with the Federal
Government