SkillWorks: Overview
Two-page description of the initiative goals, strategies, intended outcomes, partners, and grantees.

SkillWorks: Overview (File Size: 120K)

SkillWorks Initiative, Year End Report – Year 3

Prepared by Abt Associates, this report focuses on the activities and accomplishments in the third year of program operations. For some key metrics, it also presents the cumulative results that have occurred from Year 1 through Year 3

SkillWorks Initiative, Year End Report (File Size: 660K)

In 2003, the Boston funder collaborative launched SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce, an ambitious, five-year initiative to improve the way the city's workforce development system serves low-income adults and employers. SkillWorks has since become a national model, inspiring other communities and states to launch similar initiatives. This report, by JFF's Geri Scott, looks at what SkillWorks has to tell us about the formation of partnerships, engaging employers, aligning resources around a common goal, and the challenges in advancing low-skilled adults toward family-sustaining incomes.

Working Toward Reinvention (484K)

Funder Collaboratives: A Philanthropic Strategy for Supporting Workforce Intermediaries
 
Across the country, funder collaboratives pool funds for fostering the formation and expansion of workforce intermediaries and to advocate for policies that will sustain these new organizations. The power of these collaboratives comes not just from the funds they bring to programs but, even more crucially, from the alignment of civic leadership around a common vision for the community. This report, by JFF's Geri Scott, was prepared for Investing in Workforce Intermediaries , itself a collaboration of the Annie E. Casey, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations. Since 2004, the sponsoring foundations, working with JFF, have led a pilot effort to create a national support infrastructure for workforce intermediaries. In Baltimore, Boston, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area, funder collaboratives affiliated with this initiative are supporting local efforts to change how workforce development is delivered.

Funder Collaboratives (File Size: 320K)

Funder Collaborators: Executive Summary (File Size: 92K)

Mid-Year Assessment of the Capacity Building Component of the SkillWorks Initiative
This report presents the mid-year assessment of the Capacity Building Component of the
SkillWorks initiative. The report primarily focuses on the period of January through July
2006, although it also covers some activities both before and after that period. This midyear
assessment was based on the evaluation team’s review of written materials,
observations of meetings and participation in conference calls of the Capacity Building
Committee of the SkillWorks Funders Group, and interviews with key stakeholders in
SkillWorks capacity-building activities.

Mid-Year Assessment (File Size: 404K)

SkillWorks Initiative: Year-End Evaluation Report (Year 2)
The report assesses the Year 2 experience of the SkillWorks initiative, focusing on the program year spanning the period from December 1, 2004 through November 30, 2005. It examines the activities and accomplishments of the SkillWorks-funded sectoral workforce partnerships.

Year-End Evaluation Report (Year 2) (File Size: 2.1M)

Profiles in Workforce Development
Prepared by the Workforce Solutions Group for SkillWorks, this document tells the stories of Massachusetts residents using the current workforce development system.

Profiles in Workforce Development (File Size: 256K)

Building a 21st Century Workforce: A Forum with the Candidates for Governor of Massachusetts (Event Program)
The conference program for the gubernatorial forum hosted by SkillWorks on June 29th includes background information, candidate questions, and speaker biographies.

Program (File Size: 276K)

Massachusetts Labor Markets in Mid-2005: An Assessment of Job Vacancy and Unemployment Developments and Their Implications for Workforce Development Policy (2006)
This paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, shows that Massachusetts's very weak job-generating performance since 2000 calls for a major strengthening of economic development efforts, and that there is a clear need to improve ties between the state's economic development and workforce development systems.

Occupational Employment and Job Vacancy Developments in Massachusetts, 2000-2005: Implications for Future Workforce Development Policy (2006)
This 2006 paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, analyzes employment and job vacancy developments in Massachusetts by occupational category in recent years both at the state level and in selected sub-state areas, and it assesses the implications of these findings for future workforce development planning and policymaking in the Commonwealth.

Employment and Job Vacancy Developments Across Industries of Massachusetts and Local Workforce Development Areas/Economic Development Districts: Their Implications for Future Job Training and Workforce Development Initiatives
This 2005 paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, analyzes industry employment and job vacancy developments in Massachusetts in recent years, both at the state level and in selected sub-state areas, and it assesses the implications of these findings for workforce development planning and policymaking.

Wage and Salary Employment Trends in Massachusetts, 1982-2005: Findings on Recent Job Growth and Decline Across Industrial Sectors and Geographic Areas of the State, 2001-2005
To assist the Workforce Solutions Group in its research and public policy promotion work in support of SkillWorks, the Center for Labor Market Studies of Northeastern University has been engaged in a series of research activities on labor market developments in Massachusetts and their implications for the planning and design of future job training programs. The first research paper in this series describes the key data sources used in conducting the above analyses and explains the concepts and measures underlying the various employment and job vacancy estimates.

Community Health Worker Advancement: A Research Summary
Community health workers are essential to the U.S. public health system. They work in diverse settings and under myriad titles to improve access to health care for underserved populations using culturally appropriate methods. Despite their importance, community health workers are often not well rewarded, and their job tenure is unstable. Well-defined career paths are lacking, as are systematic skills sets and credentials recognized across work settings and usable for higher education.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, SkillWorks: Partners for a Productive Workforce asked JFF to recommend adaptations of the SkillWorks Workforce Partnership model in order to apply that approach to career advancement for community health workers. As the basis for these recommendations, JFF conducted research on the challenges to and national best practices for the advancement of community health workers.

Baseline Report of the SkillWorks Initiative
This report presents the baseline assessment of the SkillWorks Initiative, focusing on the activities and accomplishments of the three Implementation partnerships (the International Institute of Boston, the Boston Health Care and Research Training Institute, and Partners in Career and Workforce Development). It also assesses the activities and accomplishments of the Public Policy Advocacy grantee (Workforce Solutions Group).

Baseline Report (File Size: 1.4M)

SkillWorks: Partners
List of current SkillWorks partners, including funders, organized labor, employers, and community-based organizations, trainers and educators.

SkillWorks: Partners (File Size: 120K)

Recent Trends in the Levels Distribution and Adequacy of the Annual Earnings of Massachusetts Workers: Implications for the Boston Workforce Development Initiative
This paper, prepared for SkillWorks by the Workforce Solutions Group, examines earnings of Massachusetts adult workers. It seeks to address such issues as: how well year-round, full-time workers in Massachusetts fared in improving their real annual earnings during the 1990s, how changes in earnings varied across gender, educational attainment, race-ethnic, and nativity subgroups, how successful Massachusetts full-time, year-round workers in 1999 were in earning enough to support a family of four, and how rising inequality developments in Massachusetts compared to those in the other 49 states.