Workshops
Here's a preview of workshops currently scheduled for this year's conference. More workshops will be added as details become available. Schedule is subject to change.
Pre-Conference Workshops
Wednesday, October 11, 2006 9:00am-11:30am
Getting to 50% Work Participation - What Does TANF Reauthorization Mean for ME?
Courtney Barthle, Senior Associate with Caliber, ICF International
The presenter will lead an interactive discussion on this important topic and share best practices she has acquired in working with other states. This session will prepare participants to approach this seemingly impossible task, and focus on the opportunities it provides. It is time to get past the opinions about whether it's a good idea or not, and get to some real thinking about how we can meet this requirement.
Disability Program Navigator
Miranda Kennedy, Program Associate, University of Iowa Law,
Health Policy & Disability Center
The purpose of the Disability Program Navigator is to increase the employment rate of individuals with disabilities by enhancing the service delivery capacity within Missouri's One-Stop Career Centers. Each of Missouri's 14 LWIBs will procure the services of a local community rehabilitation agency or independent living center to hire a Disability 'Navigator'. The Navigator will be housed in a Career Center and will help provide improved access to services and work supports that help them successfully enter or reenter the workforce.
Conference Workshops
Wednesday, October 11, 2006 3:15 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Beyond One Size Fits All...Assessment Strategies
Mary Ann Lawrence, Center for Workforce Learning
The same old assessment tools and techniques will get you the same old results. Customers need a more flexible approach to assessment that includes non-traditional types of evaluations that can make the difference between getting/keeping a job and being unemployed. This seminar will provide over a thousand assessment instrument ideas among several critical categories.
Retention in the Workplace and Why It's Important to Understand Generational Differences
Dewey Thompson, Missouri Training Institute
Different generations have different ways of communicationg, which can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and conflict in the workplace. More importantly, different generations have different work ethics which leads to challenges with job retention. This session will give participants information and effective tools for appreciating others' unique perspectives, understanding people's inherent differences and suggestions on how to collaborate in mutually beneficial ways. It's important to remember: "It's not right or wrong, it's just different."
Lifelong Learning Accounts (LiLAs)
Amy Sherman, CAEL & Paul Scianna, AIM-KC
Lifelong Learning Accounts are individual savings accounts for workers that leverage employer and worker contributions, similar to 401(k)s but for education and training. Learn what LiLAs are all about and how leaders across the country are advancing LiLA federal and state policy and implementation initiatives. Hear about how Missouri is championing LiLAs through a Kansas City region pilot as a part of the USDOL WIRED initiative and explore how to bring LiLAs to your community.
SHARE Network: Employment Assistance is Coming to Your Neighborhood
Donna Prenger, Mike Gavura, Tiffany Jasper, Rev. Douglas Parham,
Cyndi Johns, Farah Abdi & Rita Elkins
The objective of this workshop is to secure participation of workshop participants in the Missouri SHARE Network, as private members on the Resource Directory and as cross-referral advocates for Access Points. Attendees will be prepared to register themselves on the Missouri SHARE Network Access Points in their regions.
Training Consortium - How to Make it Work
Steve McPheeters, Noranda Aluminum & Bud Joyner, TRCC
Training resources are limited, especially in rural areas. A group of businesses and a community college in Southeast Missouri developed a creative way to pool resources and share costs in order to implement innovative training programs for their workforce. This workshop features the Bootheel Regional Training Group, its structure, its benefits and its history, from a business point of view.
Moving Beyond Just Business Services...Becoming a Business Champion
Greg Newton, Greg Newton Associates
Most business services teams and representatives spend most of their time in figuring out how to help businesses through offering quality business services - and that's great! However, another potential (and important) role is to become the champion for change within the workforce system to ensure that the services offered meaningfully respond to the real needs of the business community. This workshop will address: the role of the business services representative as system and program change advocate; why "workforce intelligence" is a two-way street and how to use it effectively; how to turn what you learn from businesses into action; and the specific steps you can take to become a representative of business and not just a representative to business.
Thursday, October 12, 2006 7:30 a.m. - 8:30 a.m.
Leadership Breakfast - Transitioning to a Demand-Driven Workforce System
Thursday, October 12, 2006 8:30 a.m. - 10:00 a.m.
Is America Falling Behind in Math and Science? And What Should WIBs do About It?
Nina Babich & Donna Crudder, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
Join in an interactive discussion about the impact of math and science skills and knowledge on our economic growth. What responsibility do Local WIBs have in their regions to raise awareness of the issue? What can local boards do to encourage constructive public policy and implement solutions? How should boards invest their resources to increase math and science attainment?
Practical Tools for Workforce Professionals: The Latest in Missouri Labor Market Information
Mary Bruton & Veronica Gielazauskas, MERIC
In today's demand-driven workforce system, labor market information serves a critical role in the informed decision-making process. In this session, workforce practitioners will be shown the latest labor market tools that MERIC, the state's LMI research center, has developed. Topics include: Missouri Job Crawler - a comprehensive web-based workforce development and LMI delivery system offering an array of services for One-Stop customers; Math and Science Job Growth - an analysis of projections, training provider and skills data identifying math and science-intensive occupations and related industries; and Missouri Family Wages - a report and web-based calculator providing detailed regional information about what it takes to support a family in Missouri.
The Road to WIRED
Paul Scianna, AIM-KC; Rod Nunn, DWD; Mike Dunaway,
Metropolitan Healthcare Council; Bill Duncan, KCASI; Clyde
McQueen, FEC
Kansas City is one of 13 regions selected by the U.S. Department of Labor to receive a $15 million WIRED grant. The OneKC WIRED initiative represents a dynamic, development transformation within an 18-county, bi-state region. OneKC WIRED will integrate and build upon a collection of currently independent activities - leading to an unprecedented, comprehensive system of economic development, workforce development, and education and training opportunities to meet the region's current and future needs. OneKC WIRED initially targets the high-growth, high-demand industries of advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, and healthcare. OneKC WIRED initiatives are scaleable, transferable (to other regions and industry sectors), and sustainable. Come prepared to learn ways these programs can be adapted and used in your area.
Thursday, October 12, 2006 10:30 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Missouri Dept. of Corrections - A Philosophical Change in Business
Julie Boehm, Mo. Dept. of Corrections
The Missouri Department of Corrections is in the process of implementing the Transition from Prison to Community Model. As 97% of offenders will go home, this model puts a focus on preparing offenders for release into our communities. With the collaboration of state agencies and community organizations, Missouri is working towards ensuring offenders leave prison with the tools they need to be successful.
Operation Jumpstart: Entrepreneurial Opportunities for Non-Traditional Customers
Dennis Roedemeier, Missouri Research Corp. & Bill Vickery,
Southeast Innovation Center
Find out how the Southeast Innovation Center's Entrepreneurship Program has helped jumpstart more than 100 new businesses in the 13th poorest Congressional District in the nation. See the program...hear the stories...learn the secrets of job creation success.
Missouri's CRC System, Why It Will Work!
Jim Duane, UMSL; Steve Coffman, DESE; John Gaal, Carpenter's
District Council of Greater St. Louis & Vicinity; Rose Marie
Hopkins, MTEC; Kim Mildward, Northwest Mo. Regional
Council of Governments; Dr. Lynn Dutton, FEC; & Skip
James, FEC
During the last year there has been a targeted rollout of the Missouri Career Readiness Certificate (CRC) system. The intent for the rollout was to start with a manageable number and develop an infrastructure that would assist in a statewide implementation. The CRC will be used as a major economic development tool to attract new companies and retain existing growth companies. This presentation will discuss best practices and pertient implementation updates.
A Dialogue on Reaching and Serving People with Limited English Proficiency
Greg Newton, Newton Associates
Most communities are becoming ever more culturally and ethnically diverse, including immigrants and first-generation Americans who may be monolingual or have limited English proficiency. This important labor pool must be tapped to meet the labor and skill shortages businesses confront and is key for the economic development of many communities. USDOL has issued guidance and requirements to prevent language discrimination in the access to and delivery of services. This session will review those requirements (including four key elements) with ideas for effective compliance. Those attending will exchange ideas on current practices and brainstorm solutions to ensure that all people can be effectively served by Career Centers and partner programs.
Laugh Out Loud...Managing Stress
Mary Ann Lawrence, Center for Workforce Learning
Workforce development is serious business! The GREAT case managers know how to balance life with work and understand the importance of managing the difficult times with laughter. This session will provide some comic relief and pointers on how to look at your professional life with a twinkle in your eye. Managing your stress will help you do your job better than ever.
Healthcare Innovations: Expanding Nursing School Enrollment Through a Hospital-Employed Clinical Faculty Model
Mike Dunaway, KC Metropolitan Healthcare Council; Clyde
McQueen, FEC
The shortage of qualified clinical faculty is one of the most significant barriers that prevents nursing schools from expanding enrollment to meet the growing demand for additional nurses across the nation. Through a collaborative strategic process, nursing schools and hospitals in the metro region of Kansas City have significantly increased the number of clinical faculty, resulting in an increase in nursing school enrollment by 20 percent or approximately 200 additional nursing students. The expansion of clinical faculty/nursing students is the result of an innovative leased clinical faculty model coordinated by the KC Metro Helathcare Council, in which area hospitals provide bedside nurses to nursing schools to serve as clinical faculty. Central to this model is the Clinical Faculty Academy - a two-day intensive course developed by area nursing schools to prepare the bedside nurses for their new educational duties. As one of the recipients of the recent WIRED grant, the KC clinical faculty/nurse expansion initiative is a highly replicable model that was recently used by the St. Louis metropolitan region to increase enrollment by approximately 360 additional nursing sutdents. In addition to the WIRED healthcare initiaive this presentation will also describe a collaborative process between area hospitals and the public workforce system to develop tools to assess the hard and soft skills of applicants for entry level healthcare positions. This process is also being applied to incumbent healthcare workers for career ladder advancement (e.g., patient transporter, CNA, LPNs, RNs, etc.)
Thursday, October 12, 2006 2:15 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Dream It Do It: A Manufacturing Careers Campaign
Peggy M. Walton, Center for Workforce Success/The Mfg.
Institute & Paul Scianna, AIM-KC
This presentation will describe the effects of technology, demographics and globalization on the manufacturing workplace and the critical role of building a skilled worker pipeline for manufacturing. Yu will share in the lessons of national research on kids and careers, hear about the Dream It Do It manufacturing careers campaign, and find out what resources are available to help you find, create and build a pipeline of skilled workers or start a Dream It Do It awareness campaign of your own.
Early Warning Networks: A Strategic Alliance for Job Retention and Lay-Off Aversion
Thomas Croft, Steel Valley Authority
In 1993, the State of Pennsylvania charged the Steel Valley Authority with developing a Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN) to help save area companies and jobs. Since then, the Steel Valley Authority has helped scores of companies and saved thousands of jobs. This workshop provides an overview of Pennsylvania's model of an Early Warning Network.
Alchemy: Innovative Technology to Skill Up Missouri's Workforce
Deborah Weaver & Rip Rowan, Alchemy Systems
DWD has partnered with Alchemy Systems to provide SISTEM training (Standard Industry Skills Training and Educational Media) for all job seekers and workforce professionals throughout the state of Missouri. This presentation will focus on best practices through implementation of SISTEM in the Career Centers and will offer the opportunity to ask any questions that you may have about its use and implementation.
Getting the Big Picture: Combining WorkKeys Foundational and Personal Skills Assessments to Find the Right Employees
Steve Anderson & Barbara Halsey, ACT, Inc.
This presentation will focus on the use of both hard and soft skill pre-employment assessments for employers to use in selecting applicants with the right fit. ACT's WorkKeys system combines foundational skills assessment with a suite of personal skills assessments to provide employers with two critical aspects of workforce readiness. The foundational aspect focuses on cognitive workplace skills while the personality assessments measures attitudes, interests and values. These instruments are equally effective in other employment activities such as training, employee development, career development and succession planning.
Matching Client Assessment to Career Options
Ann Merrifield, Missouri Training Institute
Understanding how adults make career decisions is a critical skill for today's workforce development professional. This session will discuss internal and external challenges facing adults, how assessment data can serve as a catalyst in making career decisions and how to facilitate the career development processes with your job-seeking customers through effective problem-solving.
Enhancing Services to Unemployment Insurance Claimants
Robert Ruble & Gilbert Hake, DWD
DWD and DOLIR are working together to enhance services to help Unemployment Insurance Claimants return to work sooner and find better jobs. Current initiatives the panel will discuss include: applying for a Reemployment and Eligibility Assessment Grant from the Department of Labor; improving technology to improve job matching; worker profiling; expanding four-week reporting locations; and other service enhancements.
Thursday, October 12, 2006 3:45 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Achieving Partnerships and Performance with the Adult Common Measures
Greg Newton, Newton Associates
The USDOL TEGL on the new Common Measures presents great opportunities to strengthen system partnerships - and potential risks for program performance. The service paradigm has been significantly changed by whom you are to count when. As a result, a new service delivery design and strategy will be needed to serve your customers, while still meeting your program performance standards. After a very quick review of the measures and definitions, this session will explore implications and give ideas for achieving success: methods to encourage partnership through the common measures; a redesigned center customer flow (where not everyone starts in the resource room); options for functional (not just program) service delivery; how to achieve program outcomes when you have less control of who is enorlled and exited; and many more tangible, can-do ideas.
Developing the Pipeline for Health Professions
Becky Steele & Paula Overfelt
Healthcare careers are some of the most in-demand occupations in Missouri; USDOL projects this demand to continue over the next decade. Missouri Area Health Education Centers (MAHEC) throughout the state create academic-community partnerships and promote healthcare careers to Missouri youth. Regional AHEC and WIB leaders will discuss the pipeline development activities carried out by AHEC as well as a recent successful collaboration in the reduction of nursing vacancies in the Northwest Region.
Entrepreneurship as Economic Development
Mary Pausell & Jim Gann, University Center for Innovation and
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs create the majority of jobs in this country. Their enterprises form the backbone of our communities. Their small businesses are a vital economic development engine that creates jobs and prosperity. Many believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made, but we have a responsibility to sustain them by creating an entrepreneurial climate, providing technical assistance and offering educational opportunities to help them succeed. Learn how you can turn entrepreneurship into job creation in your community.
Terminology, Technology & Legal Issues: Communicating Effectively with Deaf & Hard of Hearing Consumers
Kim Davis & Matthew Gwynn
If you are seeking to have fun while learning how to build effective communication pipelines for providing enhanced services for consumers who have hearing loss, then this workshop is for you! Two dynamic presenters will channel you through appropriate terminologies, awesome technologies and services, and up-to-date legal obligations throughout this workshop. You will leave the workshop having gained awareness and understanding of how to provide effective services with a goal to have your deaf and hard of hearing consumers leave your facility with a smile!
The National Farmworker Job Program (WIA 167) & One-Stop Model
Stephen Borders & Tina Koehn, UMOS
This workshop will focus on the National Farmworker Job Program and the UMOS One-Stop model. The workshop will address: the special employment needs of diverse groups; identify their needs and expectations; the process of intake, assessment, and development/implementation of a service plan; adaptation of materials and services. The workshop will also explore the UMOS unique service delivery model that accommodates a diverse group of participants utilizing innovative projects that focus on removing serious barriers to employment.
Rethinking Upgrading & Retention in Healthcare: The Universal Healthcare Worker
Michael Van Stine, Workforce21 & Mike Smith, USDOL
This session covers the concept of a universal healthcare worker, a rethinking of how workers can be cross-trained for multiple eldercare jobs and how this training easily fits within local workforce systems. Defined as Health Support Specialist, this is now an approved USDOL apprenticeship. Workers learn diverse care skills and access defined upward mobility for advancment and stability. Included in the curriculum is advanced eldercare skill development and cultural sensitivity. College credits are earned.
Friday, October 13, 2006 8:45 a.m. - 10:15 a.m.
HR Executives
Scott Ward, Analytical Bio-Chemistry Laboratories; Don
Anderson, CoxHealth & Joe Hogan, GM Wentzville Assembly Center
A business panel of Human Resources executives will explore a variety of workforce issues including hiring, training and skill sets. They will share their insights and experience as they discuss trends, challenges and successful initiatives associated with each of these topics.
Benchmarking WIBs: What Makes a Great Board?
Nina Babich & Donna Crudder, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce
WIBs are about much more than overseeing programs. Great WIBs have an impact on their community. They are where economic development, workforce development, and education goals are aligned. They are entrepreneurial. They are passionate about their mission. With the support of four Missouri LWIBs and DWD, Corporation for a Skilled Workforce facilitated a benchmarking project to identify essential success factors that characterize the best boards. Come hear the results!
State Administrators Forum
Kattherine Barondeau, Mo Division of Employment Security; Nancy
Headrick, Mo Division of Career Education; Janel Luck, Mo Family
Services Division; Roderick Nunn, Mo Division of Workforce Development
Building pipelines to prosperity requires an innovative and collaborative approach by many of Missouri's workforce development partners in forming strategic alliances to enhance the economic competitiveness of the state. Join the directors of the Division of Career Education, Division of Employment Security, Family Support Division, and Division of Workforce Development as they discuss the initiatives designed to improve Missouri's competitiveness. This informally sturctured panel discussion will provide important insight regarding what is in the works, and how it will impact the workforce investment system.
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