Reentry and Workforce Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada 8/26
On behalf of the NRRC, CSG JC staff attended the above referenced meeting and co-presented with Ms. Deanna Hoskins, Senior Policy Advisor, US DOJ's BJA; Ms. Jennifer Troke, Chief, Division of youth services, Employment and Training Administration's Office of Workforce Investment, and Virginia Hamilton, Regional Administrator (West), U.S. Department of Labor.? The meeting was organized by Clarke County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick and was attended by 40--50 participants representing the Workforce Investment Board, Workforce Connections, jail, Nevada DOC, Juvenile Justice system, non-profit providers, apprenticeship providers, legislators, and county commissioners among others.
In laying out the goals of the meeting, County Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick described her wish that the participants gained new knowledge about the many stakeholders and programs that comprise the Workforce Development System in Clarke County, better coordinated their activities, and became aware of federal grant opportunities. Following her, Ms. Hamilton, Ms. Troke, and Ms. Hoskins provided an overview of federal programs and strategies managed by the US DOL/DOJ on workforce issues in general, and then specifically the intersection between reentry and workforce. Over lunch, Frederick Hutson, who is the CEO of an IT firm called Pigeonly described his story of founding this company after serving a period of incarceration. ??Impressive story and excellent speaker that we should consider for future events. I concluded the agenda with a presentation about the NRRC and the Integrated and Employment Strategies project. The agenda, PowerPoint, and printed materials are attached. The IRES Manager from CSG JC prepared much of the powerpoint that I presented, and helped oversee the integration of the DOL and BJA presentations within the overall PowerPoint. Other CSG JC staff assisted in important ways as well.
Interesting takeaways from the meetings:
1. Significant interest in the new pre-apprenticeship funding from DOL ($90 million);
2. The pre-apprenticeship programs were very well represented at the meeting. They shared that the jobs in their trades have still not recovered from 2008 levels, and that the pre-apprenticeship programs are not running nearly at capacity.
3. The Nevada Jail is running two reentry programs of note: a diversionary residential program with 93 scattered beds with Clarke County social services for mentally ill individuals (funded by Continuum of Care homeless program dollars) and a mentoring program called Hope for Prisoners, Transforming Lives.
4. The Juvenile Justice Administrator Jack Martin fully participated in the meeting and spoke of his agencies opening up a new assessment center (he spoke of his enjoyment in working with JJ group).
5. Note for NRRC website -- Jenn Troke shared that US DOL does put winning awards proposals and abstracts on website
6. Two other county commissioners attended some of the meetings. One commissioner (didn't catch name) spoke of her efforts to pass record clearance law changes for DOC.
7. Prior to the meeting, I accompanied my DOL colleagues on a site visit of a DOL Ready for Work program called Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow (FIT). Outstanding program and they work closely with work release programs in area. They offer job readiness, counseling, and also certification classes in forklift, CNA, and others. Jennifer Casey (Program Director) also attended the larger meeting and displayed a real command of reentry and workforce.
8. Significant concerns mentioned by providers about the cooperation of state Parole and Probation in working with workforce providers.
9. Concerns that Nevada DOC were not able to provide sufficient referrals to workforce providers ccing others on this report.
Thanks,
Stefan
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