Breaking Barriers / Making Connections:
Building a Middle-Class Economy for All
The annual Building Workforce Partnerships Conference is scheduled for March 21-23, 2017 in southern California. Click here to register to take advantage of the early bird special!
Tuesday March 21st – Thursday March 23rd, 2017
Hilton Orange County/Costa Mesa
3050 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa, CA 92626
800-445-8667 or 714-540-7000
Room rate $179/night
Click here to reserve your rooms online!
Click here for the Conference Schedule
Monday, March 20th, 2017
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm: Early Onsite Registration opens
Tuesday, March 21, 2017
9am – Noon Pre-Conference Meetings:
• Rapid Response and Business Services staff pre-meet – email Martha Bader for info
• Labor representatives on local workforce boards pre-meet – email Anne McMonigle for info
1pm Opening Plenary
3pm Workshops
5pm High road Reception
Dinner on your own
Wednesday, March 22, 2017
8 am Breakfast provided
Morning: Plenaries and Workshops
Noon Lunch included
Afternoon Workshops and Plenaries
5:30 pmThe Moth (no host social hour)
Dinner on your own
Thursday, March 23, 2017, Noon
Closing Event:
8 am Breakfast provided
Morning Workshops
Closing Plenary
Noon – Adjourn
About the Conference
California’s workforce system is undergoing major changes and more lie ahead. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) passed with almost unanimous bi-partisan support in Congress in 2014. In California, State institutions have aligned education and training efforts and funding streams and are striving to demonstrate accountability and improve outcomes for businesses and workers.
One important aspect of WIOA is the prioritization on serving the most vulnerable workers—low-income adults and youth who have limited skills, lack of work experience, and/or low basic skills and/or education attainment, as well as serve specific population groups such as the formerly incarcerated, public assistance recipients, the homeless, and English Language Learners.
Breaking Barriers – Making Connections, will feature exciting efforts by local workforce development board efforts, public agencies, business leaders, labor unions, educational institutions, community-based organizations and other stakeholders to rise to these new challenges and opportunities to serve the most vulnerable workers in our communities. We will hear from State, regional and local partners aligning WIOA core programs while creatively leveraging of other federal, state and local resources. Plenaries and workshops will highlight partnerships and efforts to deliver transformative service to specific populations of vulnerable workers.
Breaking Barriers – Making Connections will offer a series of sessions to provide deep training to strengthen business engagement. At the regional level, we will showcase efforts such as Slingshot to solve convene economic and workforce assets to solve problems. Workshops will dive deeply into business-friendly partner programs, examine opportunities for intervention across the business cycle; and demonstrate new tools and strategies to deliver transformative service through regional, sectoral program integration.
Breaking Barriers – Making Connections will also provide opportunities to understand the power of labor-management training partnerships in California and the country. Presentations will highlight how to engage, how to create, how to leverage and how to support labor-management training partnerships in your regional or locale to meet your mission and serve your customers through enduring, quality programs.
The California Labor Federation’s Building Workforce Partnerships Conference is an opportunity to learn about changes at the federal level with a new administration, as well as the State of California’s alignment plans for the foreseeable future.
About Building Workforce Partnerships
The annual Building Workforce Partnerships event draws together a diverse and national group of labor leaders, local and state policymakers, community advocates, environmentalists, educators, and job training and economic development professionals to debate the critical issues of the economy and the future of our society. This unique event is ultimately about collaboration — only working together can labor, business, government, and communities bridge the economic needs of working families and the challenge of sustainable economic recovery and growth.
Speakers
This year, we are pleased to be joined by Kermit Kaleba, Federal Policy Director of the National Skills Coalition. As Federal Policy Director, Kermit directs the organization’s Washington-based efforts to advance a national skills strategy within federal legislation, agency regulation and national funding initiatives. Kermit assists state and local leaders in federal policy advocacy both within Washington and in their home districts and works with National Skills Coalition field staff and partner organizations to help improve state and local implementation of federal programs. Please join us in hearing his insights on both the White House and Congress’ thinking about workforce development.
In 2015, the Department of Labor began encouraging the use of Human Centered Design in WIOA service provision, with the goal of having customer-focused, user-friendly, demand-driven solutions for businesses, job-seekers and communities we serve. Six of California local workforce teams have been recognized by the White House for excellence in this new approach. Come to this year’s Building Workforce Partnerships Conference and join Virginia Hamilton, Department of Labor Region 6 ETA Administrator, to explore and celebrate these terrific projects.