The Westchester County Association has been named project manager for a nearly $10 million, federally funded Jobs Waiting program that will provide 425 long-term unemployed residents of the Hudson Valley with intensive training for jobs in the health care sector.
The $9.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor”™s Ready to Work Partnership fund was awarded to the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board, which selected the WCA as project manager because of its extensive experience in managing and executing simultaneous multi-partner, multi-year projects, according to a WCA spokesperson.
The WCA, in announcing its selection, said grant funds will be used for outreach and recruitment to better connect workers with the kinds of organizations looking to hire; to provide training and support services to people who are unemployed but require re-training for health care jobs in high demand; and to further develop strategies to increase the number of middle-skilled and high-skilled job placements.
Those high-demand occupations include registered nurses, medical coders, radiologic and magnetic resonance imaging technicians, and physician”™s assistants, among others required by business and health care organizations in the seven-county Hudson Valley region. An estimated 13,000 residents in the region qualify as long-term unemployed, having been out of work for more than six months and having drained their unemployment benefits during the past two years, according to the WCA.
Led by Westchester County, the training program will connect workers with open positions in Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster and Sullivan counties.
WCA Vice President Amy Allen said the new project management role “is a key component of the WCA”™s multi-faceted program to help develop the best possible workplace talent in our region.”
Allen also serves as executive director of the Hudson Valley Workforce Academy, launched in January by the WCA to address what she described as “the critical need for skilled workers to help fill the 2,500-plus jobs now open in the health care, technology and business sectors here.”
Danielle DeMatteis, who will spearhead the WCA”™s management of the Jobs Waiting project, said the program will teach soft skills, such as the interpersonal skills needed in the workplace, as well as hard skills in technology and service delivery.
“Our main goal is to determine the needs of the end user ”” the employer ”” to identify hard-to-fill positions, the training that is needed and the skills gaps that exist,” she said.
Unemployed workers accepted into the program will participate in a six-week training boot camp run by The WorkPlace, a Bridgeport-based corporation and one of five workforce development boards in Connecticut.
Employers can use the Jobs Waiting program to market their job openings, access online the resumes of job candidates, and receive up to 50 percent cash reimbursements for their on-the-job and customized training costs.
Joseph DiCarlo, senior vice president and director of human resources at Westmed Practice Partners in Purchase, said the health care management services company will participate in the Jobs Waiting Program with the WCA and the two-county workforce investment board.
“This initiative will provide a robust pipeline of pre-qualified candidates who are ready and willing to fill the most critical positions, especially the most hard-to-fill jobs,” he said. “Furthermore, this partnership will demonstrate how the business community, government and academia can work collaboratively as an example of how to help close the skills gap in the United States.”
Regional one-stop career centers joining in the program include Westchester One-Stop Career Center in White Plains; Mount Vernon Career Center; Peekskill Career Center; Yonkers Career Center; Putnam One-Stop Career Center in Carmel; Rockland County Career Center in Spring Valley, and other centers in Newburgh, Middletown, Poughkeepsie, Kingston, and Monticello.
More information can be found on the Jobs Waiting website or by contacting DeMatteis at 914-948-4144 or ddematteis@westchester.org.
