Career Pathways

The road to economic stability is long and winding. Our Career Pathways strategy introduces a high-technology, high-touch worker preparation model. It includes skills assessment, career counseling, hard and soft skills training, job placement and continuing education. The result is better workers for better businesses and a better economy.

What is a Career Pathway?

A Career Pathway is a series of learning opportunities that contain connected or "chunked" education courses offered in a modified format that helps unemployed or working adults upgrade their skills, complete a credential, or gain an associate's degree. Career Pathways provide "stepping stones," short-term coursework and training programs, generally from three to nine months long, to help Wisconsin's workers gain skills and advance in an occupation or industry. By orienting unemployed workers to the training process, and by making training more accessible and manageable for working adults and part-time students, Career Pathways provide options for workers to achieve their career and wage goals.

Building Career Pathways for Success

In a career pathway designed program, curriculum is modularized or "chunked" into smaller sets of courses to lead to an entry-level job or job advancement as identified by employers. In addition to coursework, Career Pathways feature most of the following tools and services to help ensure student success:

Developing People and Supporting Infrastructure to Support Industry

The Career Pathways platform continues to expand offerings. Several training packages called "Career Academies" were offered in 2010, in areas of Manufacturing Skills Standard Certification (MSSC), Welding, CNC Programming, Industrial Maintenance, Information Technology, Accounting, Business Technology, Dental Assistant, Patient Care, and Medical Reception.

The cohort model of training has continued to provide a cost efficient method to provide training while providing a supportive environment for students. The system has experienced an increased success rate as well as a greater number of students continuing their engagement in Associate Degree programs.

Resources

Creating Career Pathways: A Framework for Success A Department of Labor webinar to help grantees refine their implementation plans in preparation for the Career Pathways Institute. Pat Schramm of WDBSCW shares her region's efforts in building a career pathway system to provide viewers a real-world, on-the-ground experience.   Available online via Workforce3one.org | View Webinar (Run time: 60 min.) | View Transcript (.pdf)