Monthly Archives March 2016

KRA Maintains 85% Job-Retention Rate With Business Customers

March 31, 2016 | No Comments

KRA’s Baltimore City workforce-development program, funded by the Department of Social Services, supports area businesses by providing trained and reliable workers, prepared through comprehensive work-participation activities, including Community Work Experience training opportunities, and intensive job-readiness workshops. Ernestine Chambers, Operations Manager, reports, “For some workforce-services programs, job-placement is the end-goal, but for KRA/Baltimore, employment for our customers is only one objective to be achieved toward our ultimate goal—job-retention that will lead to career advancement. After our Job Development Specialists have secured the opportunities with the employers, to ensure that employment is maintained, our Career Advancement Team provides post-placement case management and retention-support services, up
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KRA Business-Customers Support Juvenile-Offender Initiative

March 28, 2016 | No Comments

KRA’s Knowledge2Careers (K2C) Academy, funded by the Pacific Gateway Workforce Development Board, provides area businesses with trained and reliable young workers, 17-24, for unfilled positions, simultaneously combating a local 20% youth-unemployment rate. Challenging another statistic gravely affecting the available labor pool—70% juvenile-offender recidivism—Notre Dame University Law School’s GALILEE Program initiated a collaboration, coalescing the Law School, MATFA, KRA/K2C, and the Marine Exchange of Southern California, to engage 60+ youth transitioning from detention at the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall. The event, focused on attainable post-incarceration opportunities, produced such positive results that KRA/K2C, MATFA, and the Marine Exchange are continuing the initiative,
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KRA Supports Businesses’ Ex-offender Hiring Events

March 14, 2016 | No Comments

Business Services Representatives (BSR) of KRA’s Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services Program—operated for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services—are active contributors, applying their expertise in employer-focused workplace development, to “Turnaround Tuesday” activities and events. Created by Baltimore United in Leadership Development (BUILD), and attended by local business representatives and other key community stakeholders, Turnaround Tuesdays provide educational activities, career-preparation workshops, and hiring events for ex-offenders, an initiative that compliments KRA/Baltimore’s own innovative workforce-readiness program. In an advocacy role, a BSR team member accompanies pre-screened, qualified candidates to hiring events, supporting them to connect effectively with employers—such as Home Depot,
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KRA Introduces Innovative Communications Tool

March 9, 2016 | No Comments

KRA’s San Diego Metro Region Career Center program, operated for the San Diego Workforce Partnership, is launching a new communications medium—podcasting, i.e. making audio files available for downloading to a computer or mobile device, or online streaming. Diana Saldivar, Social Media Coordinator, reports, “As an increasingly popular method for gaining on-demand access to information and resources, podcasting is an incredible tool for connecting with KRA/San Diego business partners, career-seekers, and community stakeholders about our exceptional programs and services, as well as addressing broader workforce-development topics relevant to our Region. We are currently soliciting podcast topics, and invite you to take the Podcast Poll to vote for what you
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