This blog post was published in the original HPOG Blog on November 24, 2014.
San Diego Workforce Partnership Collective Impact
As the final element of the Job Driven-Training Checklist (PDF), Regional Partnerships encourage local employers, education and training providers, economic development agencies, public and private entities, and American Job Centers to coordinate and make the most out of limited resources. The Department of Labor, in partnership with the Department of Commerce and the expertise of other agencies, is establishing a new Center for Workforce & Industry Partnerships, which will champion regional workforce and industry partnerships. These partnerships include business and industry, community colleges and training providers, labor unions, nonprofits and community organizations, and philanthropy.
At San Diego Workforce Partnership , efforts to bring a broad cross-section of business, government, education, and community organizations around a common agenda of social change resulted in a successful partnership model. For this HPOG program, partner organizations provide ongoing guidance and support to the program at strategic and operational levels. Working with various stakeholders organized into state partnership groups, advisory board members, and common customer groups helps San Diego ensure that connections, communication, and relationship building among the partner organizations take place on multiple levels that are mutually reinforcing.
The partners within a common customer group -- including the San Diego Workforce Partnership, the County of San Diego HHS, the County's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) contractors (ResCare and Public Consulting Group), the County and City of San Diego Subsidized Housing Authorities, and the Workforce Partnership's Navigators -- communicate monthly to identify opportunities to work together. All of these organizations have the same fundamental goal of "service to a common customer" (TANF-eligible, low-income, and/ or refugee participants) and understand that by working together they can help each other better serve their clients.
A matrix was developed to help the common customer group learn about the support services that each partner had to offer to help HPOG participants stay in their training programs and become successful. All of the community organizations have rules that govern which participants they serve and how. By agreeing to share information and resources, the common customer group was able to make the most effective decisions for the most customers. To illustrate, TANF can provide child care and books, but it can't pay for tuition or housing allowance. Others in the partnership group can supply those needs.
Because the San Diego program does not offer financial support to any of these partners, steps are being taken to sustain program activities after HPOG funds are no longer available. As they work together, the various community organizations help each other to understand their strengths and their limits — something very important as the program begins to plan for how it could successfully function in the future. This group has continued to work on collective problems associated with its target population.
San Diego Workforce Partnership's Bridge to Employment in the Healthcare Industry credits success to "collective impact," which is the principle that states large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, not the isolated intervention of individual organizations. To learn more about the San Diego Workforce Partnership, please visit our Map of HPOG Grantees.