Organizational example:

Name

Instituto del Progreso Latino
Chicago, IL

Program Purpose

To aid the unemployed or underemployed Latinos in the Chicagoland area gain marketable work readiness skills and increased wages.

Program Description

Instituto del Progreso Latino offers a variety of different education and workplace training programs, including:

• Manufacturing Works: Chicago’s Workforce Center for Manufacturing – one of Chicago’s two new sector centers
• Career Resource Centers – located in three different Latino communities and with bilingual staff and materials “en Espanol” in order to increase accessibility of mostly Latino residents to Workforce Investment Act and TANF job information and placement assistance.
• Chicago Manufacturing and Computer Technology Bridge Programs - successfully trained and placed over 600 low income residents in good paying career path jobs.
• Carreras en Salud – a career pathways program bridging limited English proficient individuals into Certified Nursing Assistant and Licensed Practical Nursing

In addition, Instituto offers area employers customized training including: basic skills training; technical training (GD&T, print reading, preventative maintenance; quality assurance; ISO/QS 9000 training for shop floor workers); vocational English as a second language; job related writing and English; safety issues; and business practices.

The curriculum developer spends time at the workplace observing the jobs that the workers do, their interactions with each other, and the written materials they work with each day. Based on those observations, the developer produces a customized curriculum for each employer. The curriculum focuses on job-related conversational skills, technical vocabulary, job-related reading that might be needed, and English words or phrases that would be helpful to workers for resolving programs and getting the work done. (from Chenven, 2004)

Progress

In 2005, the workforce services department served over 5,000 participants.

Contact Information

Tom Dubois, Workforce Development Director
2570 S. Blue Island Ave.
Chicago, IL 60608
T: 773.890.0055 x129
http://www.idpl.org/