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Bridge Collaborative

BUILDING A BRIDGE TO GOOD JOBS

VISION

There is a bridge that connects the goals, aspirations and dreams of people who are currently un- and under-employed, but who want to be full participants in the economic opportunities this community offers with the needs that businesses have for skilled, motivated and committed employees.

It will be built by major institutional partners in our community whose interests intersect and are reflected in the design of the bridge.

The bridge is one critical sub-system of the larger workforce development system now emerging in the Greater New Orleans region. It will make a critical contribution to that larger effort, and be shaped by it.

HISTORY

In March 2004, the Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy convened a group of key institutional partners for the purpose of creating a bridge that connects un- and under-employed people with the sector-specific needs that businesses have for skilled employees. The bridge collaborative is a system-wide, sustainable realignment of existing resources designed jointly by the institutional partners. This project is based on understanding, respecting and including the organizational self-interests of partners in the creation of the bridge, enhancing their capacity to carry out their missions more effectively while also contributing to the achievement of common purposes.

INSTITUTIONAL P ARTNERS

    • City of New Orleans Job 1
    • Greater New Orleans, Inc.
    • Delgado Community College
    • Louisiana Technical Colleges
    • Literacy Alliance of Greater New Orleans
    • Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans
    • The Jeremiah Group
    • Loyola University’s Lindy Boggs National Center for Community Literacy

PURPOSE

    • Be a base for advocacy on behalf of un- and underemployed people who want to become full participants in a thriving local economy
    • Build upon what we know regarding hard skills (reading, writing and math), soft skills (work readiness and employability), and job skills (technical training)
    • Provide access to an integrated soft-skills, hard-skills and social-support package, tailored to the aspirations and needs of the adults crossing the bridge and the employment opportunities that await them
    • Be linked to the implementation of broader strategies, such as those focused on in-school and out-of school youth, and incumbent workers
    • Add value to what the respective partners are already doing
    • Sustain system change by creating new ways of working together that require minimal organizational and financial support
    • Allow the partners to focus not on on-time pilots that are inherently difficult to bring to scale, but on activities intended from the outset to teach large numbers of people seeking to get or upgrade jobs
    • Enhance opportunities and efficiencies with whatever money is available; the scale of the money would enable more or less to be done
    • Build on best practices and research in workforce development already identified by the partners
    • Make change the focus, rather than money
    • Establish its effectiveness through formative and outcome evaluations

Updated October 8, 2008