Search Results for Baltimore City

KRA Customers Excel Through OST Partnerships

KRA operates the Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services Program, for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services (BCDSS), assisting TANF-benefit jobseekers through strategic collaborations with private- and public-sector organizations to create employment opportunities through Community Work Experience and Occupational Skills Training (OST) programs. To address local employers’ needs for job candidates with computer-related skills— now, and in our new-normal virtual environment—last month, MedCerts joined KRA/Baltimore City in a partnership to offer Fundamentals of IT as a blended-learning program, with graduates receiving IT certification through CompTIA. To date, KRA has enrolled 33 female and two male customers for whom MedCerts IT Specialists
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KRA Work-Experience Programs Essential to Workplace Success

Through the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, KRA offers jobseekers receiving TANF benefits a wide range of Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services. However, job-placement in sustainable positions can present challenges if customers have little-to-no work experience, or an outdated job history. One solution to this obstacle is hands-on, real-world work experience (WEX) with a KRA-partner agency or business, usually on an unsubsidized basis. Recently, Latarsha Ellett, School Social Worker, e-mailed, “We currently have a few KRA volunteers here at Lakewood Elementary School…could you let me know how I can request more?”  On this, Greg Alexander, KRA Program Manager,
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KRA Presents Workshops at NAWDP Annual Conference…Again!

For 30 years, the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) has supported workforce-services stakeholders to enhance and maintain their skills through continuing education, networking, and sharing ideas and experiences related to new and innovative programs and services. The KRA-NAWDP partnership is a strong and long-standing one—from providing sponsorship, presentations, and video-production services for Conferences, Forums, and Symposia, to supporting KRA staff while they share their expertise as contributors to and/or members of various Board, Committee, and pilot-program activities.  KRA sponsored 24 corporate- and program-level staff members to attend the recent 2019 Annual Conference, with three senior-level employees facilitating workshops
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KRA Monthly Spotlight!

We are all familiar with the phrase: the three most important factors for success in the real-estate industry are location, location, location! In the workforce-services industry, we have our own three most important factors for success: preparation, preparation, preparation!! Total workplace-readiness is important for all KRA customers, but even more critical for participants with major obstacles to gainful employment. Jobseekers with criminal records, low-or-no marketable skills, little-or-no work experience, and/or a history of dependence on public-assistance programs sometimes require an even more heightened level of job-preparation service. Our Spotlight! is shining brightly on two customers—among an average of 170 a
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KRA Receives Award for BUILDing Ex-offender Community Awareness

Months before KRA announced its 2016 Community Care Campaign (CCC), KRA’s Baltimore City Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services Program—operated for the Department of Social Services—was already a designated Community Partner supporting Turnaround Tuesday (TAT), a skills-training and job-placement program for “returning citizens”. Baltimoreans United In Leadership Development (BUILD) found its efforts to attract Business Partners so successful, they had more unfilled training slots and employment opportunities than ex-offender applicants.  Spearheaded by Career Agent Jermietria Carroll, for its 2016 CCC project, KRA/Baltimore targeted several high-crime zip codes and distributed TAT flyers  for an Ex-Offender Expo, expanding awareness of the services available
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KRA Supports Non-Traditional Career Opportunities for Women

According to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics’ figures, on a national level,  women comprise less than 8% percent of Automotive Service Technicians and Mechanics, an industry sector where the median wage is $45,240 in Maryland, and the occupational outlook extremely strong. Recently, supporting a demonstration-grant award to a community partner, KRA’s Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services Program, funded by the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, provided facilities and staff to augment our partner’s recruitment, screening, and referral processes for an Automotive Services Training Program. One hundred percent of the KRA/Baltimore candidates…almost one-third of whom were women…completed the NCIA
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KRA Monthly Spotlight!

One year ago today, the Maryland Secretary of Labor, Licensing and Regulation announced that the Baltimore City Mayor’s Office of Employment Development (MOED) had received a $5M demonstration grant, part of a $22M nationwide USDOL grant to seven urban areas with high youth unemployment, “to develop innovative job training strategies and work opportunities for at-risk youth and young adults.” Industries targeted in the Federal grant  included Construction, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Technology, and Transportation/Logistics. Ernestine Chambers, 2016 NAWDP-Award winner and KRA Operations Manager for a TANF Work Participation, Placement, and Support Services Program—funded by the Baltimore City Department of Social Services—reports, “MOED
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Award-Winning KRA Operations Manager Featured in Podcast

In April, we reported that Ernestine Chambers, KRA Operations Manager, had been selected by the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals for its coveted 2016 Jodi Spiegel Enhancement of Customer Service Award. Attending the NAWDP Awards Luncheon, one of many highlights of last month’s Annual Conference program, Mike Fazio, Founder/CEO, WORKFORCE180—a web-based workforce-services training resource—was so impressed by her “unbelievable acceptance speech…brief, but impactful”, he invited everyone to “Meet Ernestine Chambers” in one of his educational and informative 180PROGRAMS Podcasts. We congratulate Ernestine, a previous KRA customer, for her many accomplishments and contributions, and thank her for providing the highest
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KRA Operations Manager Wins Industry Customer Service Award

The National Association of Workforce Development Professionals (NAWDP) has selected Ernestine Chambers as the 2016 recipient of its Jodi Spiegel Enhancement of Customer Service Award, an honor previously bestowed on other KRA employees in 2013 and 2014. The  Awards Committee concluded that Ernestine’s Individual Achievement and Circumstances & Challenges, as well as her contributions to the Advancement of the Profession “directly affect the customers of the workforce development system through enhanced assessment strategies, customer focused procedures, case management systems, and related services.” When informed of the decision, Ernestine responded, “I am sincerely honored, and blessed to have such a rewarding
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KRA Maintains 85% Job-Retention Rate With  Business Customers

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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