Tallahassee, Fla. – Today, CareerSource Florida recognized the significant accomplishments of the state’s workforce system over the past year.
“With Governor Ron DeSantis’ leadership, prioritization and investment in workforce training and education, our state board is focused on ensuring we meet the current and future needs of businesses and Floridians,” said CareerSource Florida Board Chair Stephanie Smith. “I am particularly grateful to the CareerSource Florida network for its ongoing work to help communities recover from this year’s hurricane season, and to the Florida Credentials Review Committee for landmark, collaborative work to modernize and strengthen Florida’s workforce education system.”
2022 accomplishments of the CareerSource Florida network include:
- Assisting 86,503 Floridians who secured employment, including more than 4,123 military veterans.
- Providing recruiting, hiring and training services to more than 50,000 businesses.
- Awarding $2.5 million in Incumbent Worker Training grants to 68 businesses, with an emphasis on small businesses, projected to train more than 2,000 workers.
- Awarding $7.5 million in Quick Response Training grants to 15 businesses, projected to train nearly 2,600 new and existing employees.
Funding to support Florida’s veterans, targeted industries and apprenticeships
- The CareerSource Florida Board of Directors underscored Governor DeSantis’ commitment to ensuring Florida remains the most veteran-friendly state and the nation’s workforce education and economic growth trendsetter by approving approximately $20 million in discretionary job training funding to:
- Target upskilling for veterans.
- Support aviation, aerospace, and defense industries.
- Plus-up 2021 initiatives for veterans and Floridians seeking self-sufficiency.
- Provide pathways to prosperity to low-income, single and pregnant women through paid work-based learning.
- Continue funding for Incumbent Worker Training.
- Continue funding for targeted rural initiatives.
- Better coordinate these investments with all state agencies involved in advancing Florida’s workforce, including apprenticeship expansion and work-based learning efforts.
- In September Governor DeSantis announced a nearly $30 million investment, including a portion of these funds, to develop a sustainable pipeline of job-ready candidates in aviation, aerospace, defense manufacturing and IT/cybersecurity. The geographic focus for this effort includes the state’s Eastern seaboard from Flagler to Martin counties through creation of the Florida Atlantic Workforce Alliance.
- The CareerSource Florida Board of Directors allocated $1.5 million in June to support an Apprenticeship Navigator at each of the state’s 24 local workforce development boards to collaborate with businesses and the Department of Education in the creation of additional registered apprenticeships.
- CareerSource Florida and the Florida Department of Education celebrated TruMont, a Florida-based provider of healthcare curriculum development, for leading the way in healthcare apprenticeships by creating and sponsoring several new registered apprenticeship programs in healthcare across the state. Working with the CareerSource Florida network and the Department of Education’s Division of Career and Adult Education and partnering with members of the Florida Senior Living Association, TruMont registered its second program in Florida, the Home Health Aide Registered Apprenticeship program, earlier this year.
REACH Act implementation
- Florida’s Reimagining Education and Career Help, or REACH, Act seeks to achieve a more coordinated approach in delivering essential workforce development resources and services through enhanced alignment and accountability. Created under the REACH Act, the state’s first Credentials Review Committee includes 18 private and public sector leaders in business, workforce development, education and government. On Dec. 7, the committee adopted the final definition of credentials of value and approved the criteria that establish a new Framework of Quality, which will determine inclusion on a Master Credentials List for the state of Florida to ensure instructional and training programs prepare Floridians for in-demand occupations with middle to high wages.
- This year under the REACH Act, Florida’s local workforce development boards received letter grades to provide a baseline measurement that identifies areas in which they excel and areas they can strengthen to improve outcomes for job seekers, workers and businesses.
- The improved alignment of local workforce development boards is another component of this transformative, comprehensive law. As the state’s principal workforce policy organization, CareerSource Florida is exploring approaches to better aligning Florida’s 24 local workforce development boards and improving the delivery of job training services to Floridians, consistent with this charge.
- CareerSource Florida contracted with EY to conduct Phase Two of the Alignment Evaluation initiative this fall, identifying key dynamics of the state’s workforce system and exploring options for greater alignment in keeping with the REACH Act and federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act requirements. This evaluation will affect action by the state workforce development board to redesignate local workforce development areas.
- To date, more than 650 leaders and stakeholders have participated in engagement sessions with EY over the past three months. Input from diverse voices is key to the success of this initiative.
- CareerSource Florida coordinated seven workshops in Marianna, Tallahassee, Ocala, Ocoee, Tampa, Sarasota and West Palm Beach. Attendees included local workforce development board members, staff and local partners as well as CareerSource Florida and EY team members. The EY team identified consensus statewide among participants on several key points, including:
- Flexibility is desired to address local needs and issues.
- Support is desired from the state on administrative and programmatic areas in order to streamline.
- Partnerships at all levels need to be strengthened.
- There is an urgent need for talent to fill today’s jobs and the jobs of the future.
- A human- and customer-centric approach is needed to address the barriers identified and tailor services.
Florida CLIFF Dashboard
- CareerSource Florida unveiled a new tool to help Floridians who are returning to work or upskilling navigate potential changes to their public assistance benefits resulting from wage growth so they can plan for their family’s exit from public assistance. The new tool – the Career Ladder Identifier and Financial Forecaster, or CLIFF, Dashboard – uses personalized data to create a financial forecast of long-term wage growth.
The CLIFF Dashboard was created in partnership with the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and CareerSource Florida is one of only two state workforce boards in the nation to have led such pilot projects. Florida’s project is unique in that the CLIFF Dashboard targets a wide variety of customers across different programs and diverse areas of the state, and in its implementation of a technology solution to track performance.
Nine local workforce development boards, in a mix of rural and urban areas around the state, participated in a pilot using the CLIFF Dashboard with customers from January through April. Currently in the process of statewide expansion, the Dashboard serves as a tool for assisting Floridians with understanding the impacts of earning additional income, and many staff from Florida’s 24 local workforce development boards are being trained to incorporate the information into case management plans.
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ABOUT CAREERSOURCE FLORIDA
CareerSource Florida, with its business-led board of directors, provides policy direction for talent development programs administered by the Department of Economic Opportunity, Florida’s 24 local workforce development boards and their 100 career centers. The CareerSource Florida State Board serves as the Governor’s principal workforce policy and investment board, working in partnership with DEO, which is responsible for the state workforce system’s fiscal and administrative affairs, and local workforce development boards that serve Florida’s businesses and career seekers. Together, the CareerSource Florida network connects employers with qualified, skilled talent and Floridians with employment and career development opportunities to achieve economic prosperity. Learn more at careersourceflorida.com.