Philadelphia Works has years of experience and success in building apprenticeship programs for adults. Through the Youth Apprenticeship Intermediaries project, JFF is helping Philadelphia Works build on this knowledge to develop youth apprenticeship programs in two high-demand occupations: early childhood education and automotive technician.
As part of this ongoing partnership, JFF has helped Philadelphia Works engage secondary and postsecondary education partners, along with other regional stakeholders, to discuss the variety of scope and sequence options for on-the-job training and related technical instruction for youth apprenticeship programs and the blending and braiding of potential funding streams.
Type of Organization:
Philadelphia Works is the workforce development Board for Philadelphia City/County and also the regional convener and fiscal agent for ApprenticeshipPHL, a regional collaborative.
Region:
The six-county Southeast Pennsylvania area: Berks, Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties.
Sectors:
Current initiatives: Finishing trades, health care, early childhood education, and automotive technician. Upcoming: Manufacturing
A conversation with:
Meg Shope Koppel, chief research officer, Philadelphia Works
What sparked your interest in Youth Apprenticeship?
For many years, those of us in Philadelphia Works have been trying to get traction around making our career and technical education high school programs direct pipelines into employment. We were very successful in creating youth internships. However, too few internships resulted in permanent placements after graduation.
Our American Apprenticeship Initiative Grant focused on Opportunity Youth (young people aged 16 to 24 who are not enrolled in school and are not employed). Our employers repeatedly told us that these young people were not ready for direct placement into an apprenticeship, so we focused on pre-apprenticeships and were successful in IT and health care, creating pipelines from pre-apprenticeships into Registered Apprenticeships.
We were still not addressing our many successful CTE students who wished to enter the workforce directly after graduation. The Finishing Trades Institute was having some success embedded in a high school, and a wonderful pre-apprenticeship in a secondary school that fed into a health care Registered Apprenticeship was working, but they proved hard to replicate beyond these single schools.
When New America announced the Partnership to Advance Youth Apprenticeship (PAYA), a multi-stakeholder initiative led by New America, ApprenticeshipPHL stakeholders saw a way to approach creating scaled pipelines from secondary school into employment and created Philadelphia PAYA a partnership comprised of Philadelphia Works, Philadelphia Youth Network, Philadelphia Academies, YouthBuild Philadelphia Charter School, District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund, JEVS Human Services, Philadelphia Job Corps, School District of Philadelphia, and the City of Philadelphia Office of Workforce Development.
What has been your biggest success?
The true collaborative nature of youth apprenticeships really has been a wonderful success. You have to engage many partners if you wish to scale a youth apprenticeship effort and develop multiple employer opportunities into Registered Apprenticeships. We’ve found wonderful sponsors, secondary educational CTE programs, community college champions, and employers eager for young workers. JFF has supplied wonderful technical assistance and kept us moving despite COVID-19 distractions.
What has been your biggest challenge?
The devil is always in the details. Writing standards and getting employers committed to the value these bring and explaining how this defines their role in a youth apprenticeship is the biggest hurdle. Even if the sponsor is willing to take on most of the paperwork, there are still requirements the employer must meet. Transparency and inclusion are the most important ways to address this.
What advice do you have for other youth apprenticeship programs?
We found other youth apprenticeship programs very willing to share their successes and challenges. Learning how to approach each step in the process while maintaining the engagement of all the partners involved is hard, but well worth the effort. It’s not an instant process, and you have to be willing to get deep into both workplace task analyses and educational curriculums and articulations across secondary and postsecondary institutions. Starting with a core secondary program partner and their Occupational Advisory Council and then building out is a great way to get started.