Four Promising Practices from a Workforce Development Partnership

This article reports on four synthesis findings from the Credentials to Careers (C2C) initiative – a consortium of seven community colleges working to create and implement innovative programs to train or retrain unemployed and displaced workers for STEM, advanced manufacturing and health-care-related careers. These are 1) collaborating with community partners to meet the needs of employers and trainees, 2) tapping into local knowledge and investing in curriculum, 3) “minding the gaps” between each stage of their college career, and 4) using career navigators to support student success. In discussing the implications of this work, we ask what synthesis observations might offer comprehensive, specific and actionable knowledge for the changing workforce development climate of community colleges? As such, the implications suggest lessons and actionable knowledge that community college leaders and faculty members might draw from in their own efforts to meet community, student and workforce development needs.