Richland Community College was recently selected as a top 10 Bellwether Awards finalist in the Workforce Development Category for its EnRich Program: Technical + Essential Skills = Changed Lives. Richland has been invited to compete for this prestigious national award at the 2020 Community College Futures Assembly (CCFA) scheduled for February 2-4 in San Antonio.
The program’s innovative approach to training delivery combines Technical Industrial Job Skills Training (IJST) with Essential Skills. The IJST program not only provides basic technical skills in Welding, CNC, Occupational Safety, precision measuring tools, hand tools, Technical Math, blueprint reading, and heavy equipment operation, but it also concentrates on the Essential Skills that are indispensable to making the most out of life and work.
According to Courtney Carson, Executive Director of External Affairs, “The Essential Skills component of the EnRich Program is an amalgamation of life skills, job readiness, and a trauma-sensitive practice termed Motivational Interviewing. Through multiple restoring and resilient methods, Richland contests both adverse and positive experiences of trauma that participants have suffered and teaches important skills that are needed for optimal success in work, learning, and life.” He adds, “Essential Skills teach you how to articulate yourself but restores the confidence and balance of being yourself. It helps you properly prepare for employment opportunities, communicate effectively during job interviews, how to dress for success, and grow and successfully develop in diverse environments.”
EnRich is changing lives by offering quality training that connects individuals to employment and livable wages. EnRich completers are 64% minority, with 57% classified as African American, 79% male and 43% African American Male. A total of 89% of EnRich participants who completed the program were hired by major local employers. Of those, 80% remain employed.
Because of the work and its outcomes, EnRich has earned a great deal of recognition this past year receiving the 2019 Illinois Council of Community College Administrators Innovation Award and the Decatur Regional Chamber of Commerce Award for Business Expansion of the Year.
Dr. Cristobal Valdez, President, noted that the EnRich Program was designed and developed to change lives by offering quality training that connects individuals to employment and livable wages resulting in stronger communities. He said, “Even we have been a bit surprised by the extremely high levels of completion and employment persistence that have resulted from the EnRich program, and we are dedicated to continuing these and other training programs that we believe can exact positive change for both the participants and the communities Richland serves.”
John Oliver, Director of Workforce Development, feels the program has the potential to impact positively the lives of participants for years to come. “EnRich has been very impactful not only for the College but also for the greater community. It is fostering generational changes, impacting the lives of our current students and their families.”
The Bellwether Awards recognize community colleges for excellence and innovation in one of three categories: instructional programs and services; workforce development; and planning, governance and finance.
The Bellwether Awards are an integral part of the Community College Futures Assembly established in 1995.
The Bellwether College Consortium (BCC) is an elite group of colleges charged with the mission to address the critical issues facing community colleges through applicable research and the promotion and replication of best practices addressing workforce development, instructional programs and services, and planning governance and finance. Annually, the BCC holds a policy summit addressing pertinent issues facing community colleges. The annual policy summit brings higher education researchers, national and institutional leaders and industry experts to determine more effective solutions.