Background

We designed our Career Pathways program with our local partners in business and education to meet two very important needs in our region:

• Businesses need skilled workers to hire.
• Low-income adults need employment that is gratifying and pays enough to support their families.

Our model helps low-income adults move up their chosen career ladder through a series of connected educational programs that enable students to combine school and work and advance to better jobs and higher levels of education and training.

Connecting Students with Skills and Businesses with Graduates

To ensure that our participating students developed marketable skills, we worked with local employers to target high demand jobs in our service regions and then we created a “career pathway” for each, as shown in the PDF models below:

• Business
  
• Education
  
• EMT/Paramedic
  
• Manufacturing
  
• Nursing and Allied Health
  
• Welding

Before establishing their individual career paths, including a succession of achievement benchmarks, our counselors worked with the students to assess their career interests, education and skill levels, and financial, child care, and transportation situations to ensure that all students entered their path at whatever point best fit their education and skill level.

Each pathway began with adult education and the potential to attain certificates of proficiency, technical certificates, and associate's degrees. One of the most important aspects in making the students’ training a meaningful experience was the program’s “contextualized learning,” which related their lessons directly to the responsibilities they would encounter in the workplace. For example, on a nursing pathway, students learned math by focusing on weighing patients, counting medication, and other career-related tasks.

Our model also ensured that students were able to work while they pursued their educations, and that they could enter and exit the pathway as their situations changed. We worked with students to overcome their barriers and to find and retain employment or enroll in their next level of college. Our support and guidance focused on the real-world situations and problems of our students to ensure that obstacles on their pathway remained hurdles instead of becoming barriers to their success.

Successful Partnerships

Our Career Pathways program in Helena-West Helena and Pine Bluff , Arkansas resulted from long-standing creative collaboration with local community colleges (Southeast Arkansas College in Pine Bluff and Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas in Helena-West Helena), the Arkansas Association of Two-Year Colleges, the state Adult Education program with the Arkansas Department of Workforce Education, the Arkansas Department of Higher Education, and the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, all of whom we’re grateful to acknowledge.

We also thank our employer-partners for their valuable input and support. In Pine Bluff:

• Jefferson Regional Medical Center
• Davis Life Care
• White Hall Nursing Home
• AHEC Family Practice

In Helena-West Helena:

• Southern Bancorp National
• Crest Park Skilled (e-mail)
• BPS
• Dr. David Webber
• Payless Shoes
• Arkansas Employment Security Department
• Helena Regional Medical Center
• Helena-West Helena School

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