In attendance: Cathy Gannon, Todd Lee, Judith Lorei, Andre Mayer, Connie Nelson, Patricia Pelletier, Andrea Perrault, Brunir Shackleton, Laurie Sheridan, Gloria Watanabe, Gary Williams (representing Claire Ghiloni of DTA), Beverly Wing, John Zhang

Announcements:

Massachusetts has recently received another WIA Incentive grant, this time $1.75 million, for education and workforce development under Title II, which flows through the newly-created Department of Workforce Development. It's based on exceeding performance goals.

The Dept. of Workforce Development is now part of a cabinet-level Secretariat called the "Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development." Suzanne Bump, formerly Director of the Dept. of Workforce Development, is the new Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development. Tamika Correia, who comes from an ABE program and more recently Congressman Stephen Lynch's office in Brockton, is the new Director of the State Workforce Investment Board (SWIB). One of the three new SWIB task forces, on ABE, is chaired by Jerry Rubin, Director of Jewish Vocational Services in Boston.

The Commonwealth Workforce Coalition is continuing to hold its well-attended networking sessions for workforce development practitioners. They recently offered "Introduction to Workforce Development" in SE Mass, which drew a large crowd. SABES and CWC should collaborate and coordinate more around calendar and offerings.

MA DOE will be holding its second session with constituencies on the community partnership strategic planning process. They will begin next week (w/o May 29). On May 31, there is a session in Central Mass.; June 7 & 8 at Bristol and Northern Essex Community Colleges.

SABES recently held a very successful statewide sharing group videoconference of workplace educators, who are relatively isolated and far from each other. A second will be held on June 26.

Advisory Board Membership:

Several WFD Advisory Board members have resigned or retired since the last meeting. They include Carolyn Blanks, Bruce Dahlquist, Ann Dunphy, Mina Reddy, Dawna Perez, and Sofia Rasher. Joan Fitzgerald and Suzanne Teegarden have been unable to attend meetings but would like to continue to keep in touch as advisors. Those who haven't attended in a while are dropped from the list. The Advisory Board needs to add several new members. Like MCAE, the SABES WFD Advisory Board appoints its own members. Priorities should include better representation of ABE practitioners, and better geographic representation. Other suggestions included: someone with significant experience working with the disability community, representation from transitions programs, certificate programs, corrections, youth, and employers. Beth Hogan, Executive Director of North Shore Community Action, is interested in joining the Advisory Board and has worked with workplace education. Kermit Dunkelberg of the Ludlow Area Adult Learning Center was also suggested.

Board members have not had set terms to date. Should terms coincide with the SABES contract with DOE (end of June, 2008)? There were concerns about continuity and the Committee prefers to have staggered terms. Those willing to continue beyond June, 2008 can inform the group, and staggered terms of new and continuing Board members could continue beyond June, 2008. There was no agreement reached about term limits, only a sense that terms should be staggered and particular "slots" for issues and geographic areas created. There are no by-laws or written purpose, goals or mission of the group, except in the SABES workplan. A subcommittee volunteered to develop criteria and nominations for Board membership recruitment: Andrea, Cathy, Connie, and Laurie.

SABES Update:

Workplan activities for the current fiscal year's (July 1, 2006-June 30, 2007) are almost completed. Laurie and the other SABES WFD Coordinators reported briefly on some recent SABES activities, including worker rights curriculum, immigrant issues workshops (very popular), introduction to Workforce Development for ABE Practitioners, Teaching Soft Skills in the ESOL Classroom, contextualizing curriculum, data analysis, and sharing groups around ABE/WFD integration. A list of current and upcoming activities was distributed. Next year's workplan was distributed. In general, for the next year SABES will focus primarily on using a few specific products and targeting programs in each region for focused technical assistance, capacity building and program-wide integration.

There is new interest in workforce development at the state level, and in ABE/workforce development integration and coordination. The Governor has met with all the WIBs, and created a new Cabinet-level position for workforce development as part of the Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development. The unions are very happy about this. It is hoped there will be better communication with the WIB's and with local programs.

Linking ABE Programs and Career Centers

SABES Coordinators continue to initiate and coordinate meetings between ABE programs and career centers in their region. There is great variability among career centers in interest in this and in serving the ABE population. A variety of explanations were offered, including local demographics, leadership and mission of the career center, and the exigencies of Federal WIA funding. Todd suggested that there could be more specialization at the career center level, at one site in each region, like DOE's out-stationing of ABE staff at career centers across the state. Are 43% of career center clients low-income?

Career centers seem at the program level like "looking up at the Empire State Building". It's necessary to work slowly. It's often hard for programs to get students to go outside of their community, even to a career center in an adjacent town. The issue of the large number of students who are undocumented is also huge. ABE students and staff often believe career center can't serve undocumented students and don't want to send them where they will receive no help; career center staff say this, too. ABE programs support all students who want to learn, regardless of legal status. Career centers have other limits and considerations. However, some do serve undocumented clients through additional fundraising, temporary ID cards, resume training at sites, etc. But, it's difficult to place undocumented students in jobs or training, so services remain limited.

The consensus was that it is important to continue to bring together career center and ABE program staff, not only to share information and develop relationships, which has already been effective, but to develop ways to expedite career center services for ABE learners. Todd suggested that, as with some of our ABE students, we might not be able to collaborate with career centers through traditional meetings or workshops, but may figure out more flexible methods akin to distance learning techniques--using various technologies (video, audio, internet, etc.) or methods to complement or replace more traditional workshops or meetings, to fit their crazy schedules.

Building Relationships with Employers and Supporting the Field in This Shift to Employment Focus

Some of the discussion of the Advisory becomes esoteric, and we need to develop ways to connect concretely with employers and the career centers. People in ABE and in SABES sometimes become defensive, and need to recognize the performance standards of the workforce development system, and understand role of employers in both workforce development and ABE. There are jobs out there that are going begging, e.g., health centers. How can ABE programs work more effectively with employers and let them know of their services, and how can SABES help?

How can employers pick programs to work with? How can ABE promote these relationships and partnerships, and how can SABES help? There is a kind of "re-education" of the ABE field that is needed. Just as the career centers have been shifted to being more customer-focused, ABE programs, staff and teachers can be shifted in their view of their roles. Since they are typically very student-focused, they need our help to become more oriented to career pathways, career centers, employers, while remaining consistent in their student focus.

Last year DOE's statewide survey of ABE staff and students indicated nearly 2/3 wanted information about jobs and careers, but did not know where to get it. Most ABE students say they are in programs to get a job or a better job. In workforce development, there are many stakeholders: students, employers, unions. But there is resistance from many teachers to getting involved or addressing workforce development with their students; practitioners buy-in is inconsistent. Roundtable addresses this mission in its workshops for unions, employers and ABE programs. There is great ambivalence in ABE about the workplace including fear, stereotypes, prejudice, and lack of experience. Employers want workers with an all-around education, but teachers often fear their students will receive narrow occupational skills training. People need jobs, dead-end or otherwise!

There is a gap in thinking between ABE and WFD. It is being closed significantly by the emphasis on student goals (which often address skills training and employment). Is it necessary to have teachers introduce this? In the past, it's mostly been done by counselors, who can focus on introducing students to the job market, etc. Counseling staff has been drastically reduced in recent years, which works against helping students around employment, but suggested teachers and counselors could work together on student goal-setting. Since SABES has been working around workforce development, there has been a huge change in the focus on workforce development at the program level. From the top, ACLS has insisted programs focus on certain areas for a certain contract period, consistent with EFF standards (family, community and work). This is definitely happening at the program level.

The Governor is going that way, too. Practitioners want to help students. Counseling is critical. This ideological shift needs to be stated clearly. Practitioners fear it because the workforce development focus originated with "Work First" under welfare reform, which focused on a job, any job, and neglected education. Remember: these are adults, with lives, and you can't just "do things to these people"! It's essential to have the employer involved. This is a real professional relationship. There have been cuts in recent years to budget for counseling staff in ABE programs, and also the Legislature's current cuts to the ABE budget, at a most unfortunate time when more, not less, is needed.

A focus of SABES's work over the next year is consistent with these priorities. Laurie distributed copies of the table of contents and first chapter of the new SABES "Integrating Career Awareness into the ABE Classroom curriculum. Gloria said she loves the Career Awareness course and would like to see SABES doing more of "this is how you can use this," e.g., in the workplace, in talking with kids' teachers-all the ways you can use this course. Roundtable often does a workshop for SABES around how to contextualize a curriculum, and is currently doing this with workplace contexts as well as other contexts-you can contextualize anything, and that is the way adults learn best. Adults have multiple roles, and these multiple functions can be utilized in SABES trainings.

We should ask employers to be out there in our efforts. This requires a cultural re-orientation. We should highlight students who have benefited-personal testimonials are very powerful. We need to address industry clusters that are most promising. We can look at the Workforce Competitiveness Trust Fund grantees and where their students are employed. ACLS recently analyzed what kind of jobs ABE students in state-funded programs are working, and will have this data available shortly. Many ABE students work in housekeeping (across several industry sectors-they will be able to drill deeper and identify industry sectors soon). Programs need to identify the transferable skills that enable students to enter jobs and move into later jobs. Career ladders need to be addressed, including career ladders based on transferable skills for individual students, not just sectoral career ladder programs that develop ladders within one industry (e.g., the "McDonald's to banking" career ladder in Washington State that enables students with customer service skills and experience to move upward into another industry with more opportunities).

It is important to get employers to the table, and bring them to local workshops. Who can train teachers better around workforce development, than employers? Every WIB has a labor market survey for their SDA, knows where the jobs and growth are in their region. The Haverhill's local ABE Community Partnership is organizing a roundtable with food services employers and ABE programs.

Steve Gunderson's talk at the City of Boston's 2003 workforce development conference at Northeastern, emphasized tapping into the money. The best approach: know where students are working. Also, look at the money and hours of training. Many employers don't think adult education, ESOL or skills training are their job or their responsibility. Know your employers, which employers. ABE programs often don't know how to speak to business. And employers often don't know about ABE services. Next year SABES will emphasize this. It's necessary to do the outreach. Some ABE programs do know how to talk to business. But, it's a different system of delivery. And it's staff intensive, ABE programs are under-resourced and under-staffed, and ABE program directors, particularly in the smaller programs, don't have the time to build relationships with local employers. This may be a question of prioritizing-people find time for what's important. How can we increase the capacity of our own (ABE) workforce? Programs don't have resources.

There needs to be a re-prioritization. DOE needs to prioritize these efforts, provide staff resources for building relationships with businesses and career centers, etc. Directors who do this, do it on their own time. We need person power. It's based on relationship-building, and that takes time. NEHRA (New England Human Resource Association)'s members are putting their energies into retention-but not into back-filling positions vacated. We need to figure out how to connect with them, bring information from SABES to large networks, and play a clearinghouse function. For example, SABES could work with the WIB's in each SDA region to setting up meetings between employers and ABE programs, based on where ABE students are working. This could be mutually informative and help build relationships.

We also need to do more research/homework, come up with a business plan for this. That is exactly what is happening in Haverhill. South Coastal is also talking about doing this. It's important to identify what ABE programs want. SABES does not impose initiatives on programs, it supports programs in what they indicate they need. It's important to address, "What's in it for the ABE programs?"

Next Meeting:

The SABES Workforce Development Advisory will meet next in early fall, probably September. Laurie will send out minutes; poll Advisory members about possible dates; and work with the ad hoc committee to develop criteria and nominations for additional Advisory Board members.

Send comments to: Laurie Sheridan