COLLEGE PARTNERSHIPS FOR HEALTH WORKFORCE BENEFIT ... is increasing its demands for students to be more prepared to hit
ACTIVATING COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE PARTNERSHIPS FOR HEALTH WORKFORCE BENEFIT Meeting the needs of the community health center’s workforce demand is a constant challenge. There are a number of efforts emerging across the health workforce industry, policy and education arena to address those challenges. A key strategic priority (#2) of the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA) is business engagement with the education system. In the world of workforce education there seems to be a continual conversation about the need to effectively engage industry and businesses to support workforce training programs. New legislation requires partnerships between colleges and the communities they serve to assure the programs are relevant and graduates are work ready. In the health arena, industry is increasing its demands for students to be more prepared to hit the ground running and ready to work in complex, team-based, multi-professional environments. Improving health and health care requires cross- sector collaboration. Changes in the delivery of health care resulting from the Affordable Care Act and implemented through regional communities of health that rewards value over volume and increased consumer engagement, shared decision-making, and transparency of data showing cost and quality of care require adjustments to existing health workforce training programs. Cooperation across sectors like education, business, transportation, and community development can play an essential role in building a Culture of Health. http://www.cultureofhealth.org/ Activating community health center and community college partnerships is an essential strategy to meet these challenges and to address the changing and evolving health workforce. What can we do to move the needle forward with collaboration, partnership, and sharing resources? What kind of collaborative efforts have worked? What seems to be working well? What can we do more of to strengthen the partnerships? A key part of the college and specifically the workforce education divisions’ mission is meeting business and industry expectations for viable and relevant future employees. One key to fulfilling that mission while maintaining a balance with the integrity of current workforce programs and developing new programs is having the support of an activated and engaged advisory board. Activated and engaged advisory boards operate from a framework of collective impact where there is a common understanding for the purpose of participation. The college programs and their industry partners recognize the mutual benefit from participation and there are mutually reinforcing activities, such as work-based learning experiences that demonstrate that level of support. In the Jobs for the Future: “A Resource Guide to Engaging Employers”, the author presents working models of successful employer engagement and lessons for securing and sustaining partnerships with employers. It was written to help education and training providers fully realize the value of strategic, long-term, and intensive partnerships with employers. www.jff.org When employers are engaged as strategic partners, their relationship to the community college, or other education and training partners, changes. There are qualities that distinguish engaged relationships with employers from the narrowly advisory ones.
These include: Continuous: cultivating long-term relationships, rather than episodic, one-time, or short-term transactions on an as-needed basis. Strategic: approaching employers in the context of specific plans, opportunities, and objectives, rather than on a spot basis, when the college needs assistance. Mutually valuable: solving problems and creating value for both sides of the labor market—employers (the demand side) and education and training providers and learners (the supply side). Wide-ranging: engaging a variety of employers by using varied methods to recruit and involve a large number, rather than relying on one or a few of “the usual” representatives. Comprehensive: engaging employers in a variety of issues and activities ranging from curriculum development and competency identification to student advising and placement, and policy advocacy on critical issues. Intensive: engaging employers substantively and in depth, moving the conversations from a high level (“we need higher-skilled candidates”) to an in-depth dialogue about specific skill sets, long-term economic needs, and strengths and weaknesses of educational programs in meeting them. Empowering: encouraging employers to develop and assume leadership roles in pathway development and other initiatives; approaching potential partners from business at the outset of a process, rather than near the end. Institutionally varied: engaging employers through a number of channels, including industry or professional associations, public workforce entities (Workforce Investment Boards, one-stop career centers), chambers of commerce, labor-management training partnerships, and economic development authorities, among others.
LADDER OF EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT New Relationship
Level 1
Working Relationship
Level 2
Level 3
Strategic Planning
Level 4
Level 5
Key Employer Role
Advising
Capacity building
Co-designing
Convening
Leading
Stage of Relationship
Initial contact / new relationship
Establishing trust and credibility
Working relationship
Trusted provider and collaborator
Full strategic partner
Activity Examples
Discuss hiring needs, skills, competences, advise on curriculum, contract training, hire graduates.
Job site tours, speakers, mock interviews, internships, needs assessment, loan/donate equipment, recruiting
Curriculum and pathway development, adjunct faculty and preceptors
College-employer, sectorial, partnerships
Multi-employer / multicollege partnerships
It is important to remember the developmental nature of these partnerships. As expressed in the ladder of engagement, the role of the employer evolves along a continuum, from advising to leading the efforts to partner. Community Health Centers and their Community College partners can share resources and identify shared goals and outcomes that benefit both their current workforce and their future employees.
References Wilson, Randall. 2015, Boston MA: Jobs for the Future. A RESOURCE GUIDE TO ENGAGING EMPLOYERS. Accessed on September 7, 2016. http://www.jff.org/ publications/A resource guide to engaging employers. http://www.constructioncenterofexcellence.com/resources/advisory-boardemployer-engagement-best-practices/
Dan Ferguson, M.S., Director WA State Allied Health Center of Excellence Dan Ferguson has over 30 years of experience in higher education, non-profit management, health care and human services. In Dan’s current role as the Director of the Washington State Allied Health Center of Excellence, he is working to assist the community college system in understanding and adapting to the health care workforce changes due to the affordable care act.
