TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT NOTICE	NO. 15-03
	DATE: March 4, 2004

TO	:	ALL STATE WORKFORCE AGENCIES ALL STATE WORKFORCE LIAISONS
FROM	:	EMILY STOVER DeROCCO Assistant Secretary
SUBJECT	:	Building Partnerships with Faith-Based and Community-Based Organizations and A New Grant Opportunity for Workforce Investment Boards

1. Purpose. To educate workforce leaders about building new and successful partnerships between the WIA system and faith-based and community organizations (FBCO), and to announce a new grant opportunity for workforce investment boards (WIB) that successfully demonstrate the ability to partner with FBCOs.

2. Background. The U.S. Department of Labor's (Department or DOL) Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (Center or CFBCI) was created when President Bush signed Executive Order 13198 on January 29, 2001. The purpose of the Center, and a key component of the President's Management Agenda for the entire Department, is to remove statutory, regulatory, and procedural barriers that prevent FBCOs from partnering with the WIA system. As legal and regulatory barriers have been removed, ETA and CFBCI are increasingly focusing on ways to integrate FBCOs into the WIA system at the local level.

   In 2001, an audit by the Department revealed that both faith-based and community-based grassroots organizations are often under-utilized as partners in the workforce investment system.As a result, the CFBCI launched the Touching Lives and Communities (TLC) pilot project in 2003 to bridge the divide between the local WIBs and FBCOs in Memphis, Tennessee, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After a year of engaging the WIBs and FBCOs in those cities, the project has yielded valuable strategies for building new partnerships where few or none had existed in the past. This notice requests that states and WIBs utilize the enclosed materials from the TLC pilot project and other studies to incorporate FBCOs into local WIB activities.

3. Building Partnerships The TLC pilot project provides the workforce investment system with innovative models and strategies for successful partnerships with FBCOs. In both Memphis and Milwaukee, the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) and CFBCI found that FBCOs constitute a large, untapped workforce development resource.The TLC project bridged the gaps-in language, expertise, and culture-between the WIBs and FBCOs to create new partnerships that are helping Memphis and Milwaukee meet their workforce development goals and objectives. The experience in Memphis and Milwaukee also highlights new opportunities for direct collaboration between FBCOs and employers that are seeking motivated, responsible, and reliable employees. FBCOs in these cities are being asked to assist job seekers in acquiring the life management, employment enhancement, and readiness skills needed to benefit from the vocational or technical services offered at One-Stop Career Centers or to enter and succeed in the job market.

   This notice contains three attachments that will provide workforce system leaders with strategies, lessons, and creative ideas for working with FBCOs to help hard-to-serve individuals in their communities.

   • The first attachment (Appendix A) is a report that captures the lessons-learned and best practices from the TLC pilot project in Memphis and Milwaukee.

   • The second attachment (Appendix B) is a report that highlights successful access point models used by DOL grant awardees in Eastern Florida and North Dakota. These reports are summarized below.Additional information taken from an evaluation of ETA's 2002 grassroots FBCO grantees is also included in this section.

   • The third attachment (Appendix C) is a legal "dos and don'ts" document produced by the White House Office on Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to educate the public about the modern legal guidelines that govern working partnerships between government entities and FBCOs.

   A list of ETA grant awardees and their project summaries that show the broad range of services being provided by FBCOs throughout the nation can be found on the CFBCI Web site at www.dol.gov/cfbci.

   Touching Lives and Communities Final Report (Appendix A)
   In 2003, CFBCI and a team of experts developed a model for collaboration and integration between FBCOs and local WIBs in Memphis and Milwaukee.The resulting TLC pilot project had two purposes: (1) offer workforce development services to hard-to-serve populations by leveraging the assets (services and access) of FBCOs in urban, low-income neighborhoods; and (2) connect FBCO service providers and partners to the workforce investment system by including them in the decision-making and management processes of the WIBs and One-Stop Career Centers.Appendix A contains the TLC final report that summarizes the partnership process and the lessons-learned from this yearlong effort.

   The following list contains some of the key lessons-learned in Memphis and Milwaukee:

   • When the momentum is built around a vision for addressing community needs, businesses, FBCOs, and community leaders will provide their time, passion, and commitment to move the collaboration project forward.

   • In so far as is appropriate, WIBs can design new funding initiatives with current funding from WIA and other programs that can both address the needs of businesses in finding skilled workers and capitalize on a connection to the community and the strengths of grassroots organizations.

   • Collaborations between the workforce system and FBCOs involve including FBCOs in direct funding and/or contracting opportunities.

   • It is important to build relationships between currently funded entities and grassroots providers. This can lead to appropriate subcontracting opportunities and general collaboration in targeted neighborhoods.

   • Building working relationships between grassroots organizations and One-Stop Career Center staff can result in valuable opportunities to reach hard-to-serve individuals by encouraging mutual referrals and resource sharing.

   Access Point Model Final Report (Appendix B)
   In 2002, ETA invested more than $17.5 million in grants to twelve states, twenty grassroots FBCOs, and nine intermediary FBCOs. The goal was to create access to One-Stop services for individuals who traditionally do not utilize those resources and to increase the number of FBCOs that are committed partners in the One-Stop system. That same year, ETA issued Training and Employment Guidance Letter (TEGL) 17-01, which requested that states incorporate grassroots FBCOs into WIA activities and programs. TEGL 17-01 may be found on the ETA Web site at www.doleta.gov.

   This investment by ETA has produced valuable models for WIB and One-Stop system leaders to further the goals of the local workforce system. Appendix B describes the different models that ETA grant awardees employ to create universal access to One-Stop services.The first model utilizes FBCO locations as "access points" to the One-Stop Career Center system. This model is best demonstrated by ETA grantee United Way of Brevard County, Florida, which established "Mini-One-Stop Career Centers" in FBCOs in high-poverty communities that are beyond the geographic reach of Brevard Joblink Career Centers. Several other state and intermediary grant awardees have implemented different variations of this model.

   The second model creates a resource sharing system that helps FBCO customers access One-Stop resources, and visa versa. This creative model was developed by Job Service North Dakota, an ETA state grantee. Through Project SHARE (Sharing How Awareness Empowers Others), North Dakota established more than 400 new partnerships with FBCOs by creating a comprehensive online resources sharing network and conducting substantial outreach.

   These models are available to workforce system leaders to design strategies to conduct outreach, fill skills gaps, and meet the unique training needs of hard-to-serve populations in their states and local areas.

   Preliminary Evaluation of ETA's 2002 FBCO Grassroots Grant Awardees
   A preliminary evaluation of these grant awardees conveys three key lessons. First, grassroots FBCOs can provide an intense level of personalized care, service and commitment. Second, the success of many grassroots service providers is linked directly to their ability to network with other similar organizations, employers, local WIBs, and the One-Stop system. Third, grassroots grantees require more technical assistance than larger non-profit organizations to fulfill the data collection and other administrative requirements that accompany Federal grants. Each lesson provides workforce system leaders with important information about how to assist grassroots FBCOs with what they do best-provide quality personalized care and job readiness training to individuals in need-while meeting their own workforce goals and objectives.

4. Grant Opportunity The Department encourages WIBs to begin partnering more effectively with FBCOs. With that goal in mind, ETA will offer a unique competitive grant in March 2004 to WIBs that have successfully demonstrated the ability to form working partnerships with FBCOs. The grant will build upon successful ETA grants from Program Years (PY) 2001 and 2002 that focused on the use of intermediaries to build partnerships between FBCOs and local One-Stop systems. The PY 2001-2002 grant solicitations are listed on the CFBCI Web site at www.dol.gov/cfbci. The end goal of this new grant opportunity is to encourage WIBs to form long-term partnerships with FBCOs to develop and sustain service delivery mechanisms in order to provide enhanced employment opportunities for hard-to-serve populations, including ex-offenders, welfare recipients and out-of-school youth.

   Potential grant applicants will:

   • Create new financial and non-financial relationships with FBCOs and show how the WIB will sustain relationships beyond the grant cycle.
   • Identify up to three separate businesses or business sectors that will collaborate with the local WIB, One-Stop system, and FBCOs to provide a number of jobs with long-term career opportunities and hire qualified employees from disadvantaged neighborhoods.
   • Identify specific census tract(s) (neighborhoods) with high unemployment rates where current and potential FBCO resources (resource map) help hard-to-serve individuals prepare for and sustain employment.



5. Action Required Please make this information available to appropriate program staff.

6. Inquiries. Questions regarding the Touching Lives and Communities project or any other information included in this Training and Employment Notice should be directed to Erica Sager at 202-693-6450 or Sager.Erica@dol.gov. ETA and CFBCI will provide additional information throughout 2004 to support workforce boards in developing relationships with FBCOs and the One-Stop system to help serve local workforce and employer needs.

7. Attachments.

   Appendix A: Experiences from the Field: Fostering Workforce Development Partnerships with Faith-Based and Community Organizations

   Appendix B: Bridging the Gap: Meeting the Challenge of Universal Access Through Faith-Based and Community Partnerships

   Appendix C: Guidance for Faith-Based and Community Organizations on Partnering with the Federal Government

EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING ADMINISTRATION
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Washington, DC 20210