The Greater Philadelphia Healthcare Partnership (GPHP) has concluded another successful year — its tenth — of service to the employers, educators, workers, jobseekers and workforce development professionals of Southeastern Pennsylvania, Northern Delaware and Southern New Jersey.
Highlights of the Partnership’s tenth year included its key supporting role in registering employer partner Philadelphia FIGHT’s Community Health Worker Apprenticeship Program with the Pennsylvania Apprenticeship & Training Council; its successful application for another multiyear, multimillion dollar US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration “on-the-job training” (OJT) grant; and another banner year of 500+ training completions by community residents and incumbent workers employed by GPHP partners.
Highlights of the Partnership’s tenth year included its key supporting role in registering employer partner Philadelphia FIGHT’s Community Health Worker Apprenticeship Program with the Pennsylvania Apprenticeship & Training Council; its successful application for another multiyear, multimillion dollar US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration “on-the-job training” (OJT) grant; and another banner year of 500+ training completions by community residents and incumbent workers employed by GPHP partners.
| As always, job training and workforce development activities represented the core of the Partnership’s work over the past year. Job-seekers and incumbent workers at employer partners participated in a wide range of trainings over the course of the year, covering everything from soft skills to clinical training. GPHP continued to expand its training offerings in 2014-2015, adding Basic HIPAA, Privacy & Ethics, as well as a number of other topics and courses, to the broad suite of training programs available to partner organizations at reduced costs. This year, GPHP completed a total of 528 trainings. GPHP also continued its successful “Health Careers Mobility Project” (HCaMP), a US Department of Labor-funded grant program subsidizing OJT placements for un– and under-employed workers in Greater Philadelphia’s growing healthcare sector. With 95% of HCaMP participants successfully completing OJT, and 85% maintaining their employment following OJT, in October the DOL elected to award GPHP another four-year OJT grant that will enable the partnership to build on this success, adding two new occupations (Community Health Worker and Data Analyst) and a Registered Apprenticeship option to the menu of options available to participating employers. GPHP Highlights, 2014-15 | Registered Apprenticeship — increasingly a top priority for the Obama administration — was a key component of GPHP’s successful funding application. In December, GPHP Director Susan B. Thomas presented Community Health Worker (CHW) Standards of Apprenticeship and a customized Work Process Schedule to the Pennsylvania Apprenticeship & Training Council (PATC), on behalf of GPHP employer partner Philadelphia FIGHT. The PATC approved the program, making it the first CHW Registered Apprenticeship in Pennsylvania. FIGHT’s first Apprentices began their training a short time later, and are currently completing their Apprenticeships with grant support. In addition to all of these milestones GPHP welcomed a new staff member, with Employer Liaison Lacey Dickinson, a graduate of Swarthmore College, joining the Partnership from the Sustainable Business Network, with previous experience in a number of roles at the Women’s Opportunities Resource Center. Training programs are never the only benefits GPHP offers to its partners, and this year was no exception. Quarterly IP meetings featured a diverse and informative lineup of guests from the healthcare and workforce development fields. This year’s guests included KPMG Director of Healthcare Analytics Ryan Hayden; Dmitri Tuchinsky, Esq. of law firm Duane Morris; Adaptive Lean Six Sigma expert John Muka, PhD, of AptoLean Adaptive Work Design; and, at January’s Patient & Worker Safety in Ebola Treatment symposium, representatives from OSHA, CDC and NIOSH, national SEIU and AFSCME, Philadelphia Department of Health, University of Virginia, and Risk Management/Infection Control Managers from Jefferson and Temple Health. GPHP welcomes healthcare employers, academics, public sector partners and workforce development professionals to its quarterly meetings and other special events. For additional details, news and events, and other updates, or to get involved in the Partnership, please visit our newly-launched website (www.GreaterPhilaHealthcare.org) Facebook page (facebook.com/GreaterPhilaHealthcare), contact IP Director Susan Thomas (sthomas@1199ctraining.org) or follow us on Twitter @PhilaHCPartners. As it begins its second decade of service, the Greater Philadelphia Healthcare Partnership looks forward to the contributions it can continue making to the future success of the region’s healthcare industry and workforce. |