Last week, Washington County was awarded their level 1-3 Maintenance Certificates for the ACT Work Ready Communities during the 2019 ACT Workforce Summit in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Washington County is currently the only county out of 486 in the United States that has reached Level 3 Maintenance, a remarkable achievement for the community, Mississippi Delta and the state.
Every year, the ACT Workforce Summit is held in a different location and is an event that assembles the many different stakeholders involved in workforce development which goes beyond just employers and job seekers.
At the summits, those ACT Work Ready Communities (WRC) who attain such success in workforce development are recognized and rewarded for their achievements.
ACT WRC’s empower states, regions and counties with data, processes and tools that drive economic growth.
Will Coppage, executive director for the Washington County Economic Alliance, was there to receive the award and also participate as a member of a panel, which included Cary Karlson and Ruth Nichols.
Since 2016, the WCEA has worked closely with ACT and has used Washington County as somewhat of a testament as to what can be achieved through strong partnerships and consistent collaborative efforts.
By achieving certified ACT’s Work Ready Communities status, counties are demonstrating they have a robust workforce development effort aligned to their economic development needs resulting in: business and industry individuals policy makers, educators, and economic developers.
Coppage said what was amazing about the summit was that ACT asked them (Ruth Nichols, Assistant Vice President of Community and Economic Development for Alcorn State University and Cary Karlson, former WCEA executive director, and himself) to put together a panel to speak about a significant topic in workforce development.
The panel was called “Mining for Talent — In Our Jails and Our Opportunity Youth.”
FREE, a successful and replicable reentry jail program based on WorkKeys that reduces recidivism and supports workforce development through education and employment was highlighted in the panel discussion.
The panel discussion also explained how to reach youth ages 16 to 24 who have few marketable skills in the Mississippi Delta and the strategies to reach this population.
In addition, the panel discussed methods to fund testing and ways to fund training through the Mississippi Community College System.
According to the organization, participants of WRC are leveraging ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) to measure and close the skills gap — and building common frameworks that link, align and match their workforce development efforts.
Coppage and Karlson were also asked to talk about the expansion of Nufarm and the opening of their manufacturing facility in Greenville.
“When we were recruiting Nufarm, one of the key components of that conversation was workforce,” Coppage said. “We explained to them the importance of our ACT Work Ready Community that we’ve been involved in.”
Coppage discussed with Nufarm how the utilization of ACT’s National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC) assessment provided evidence and a model for job candidates’ preparedness.
ACT and the NCRC assessment, according to Coppage, is a way for rural communities to compete on a global level and takes the workforce conversation off the table because it can be quantified on a qualitative level by using the assessment.
“Getting to be at these places and talk about our workforce is really a special moment because it’s bringing an actual spotlight to the workforce here in Washington County,” Coppage said.
“We’re leading the pack and we should be very proud of it.”
