Happy National Apprenticeship Week!
Learn about our new work in this arena!
Apprenticeships 101
When you hear the word ‘apprentice’, what image comes to mind? Is it someone learning a building trade like carpentry or electrical? A Middle Ages seamstress? A certain TV show? In recent years, ‘non-traditional’ apprenticeships have been growing in sectors like IT, Tech, Community Health, Video Production and more to provide paid on-the-job learning, free education and training, and guaranteed wages and career pathways. What more industries are finding is that there is great power in this tried and true model to build a thriving workforce in any sector.
Apprenticeships are a standardized and successful approach to career and economic development in much of the world, and given the success of traditional apprenticeships in the US, in 2018 Governor Newsom set a goal for California to have 500,000 apprentices. A focus in this goal is on non-traditional sectors and growing family sustaining career access for women, LGBTQIA, and BIPOC communities who we know are systematically tracked into lower paying and precarious jobs.
San Francisco Beacon Initiative’s efforts
Ok, but why is SFBI talking about apprenticeships? We know Beacon staff are critical to creating impactful programs for youth, family and communities. And we know that Beacon staff are often from and reflect their school communities and deserve clear career pathways and holistic support systems to help build their career. Over the last three years, SFBI’s Workforce Development team has been developing programs and researching best practices to address the workforce challenges in our field: staff shortages, high turnover, low retention, skill gaps and more.
To address these challenges and opportunities, we recently launched a committee of Beacon leaders from across the network, city agencies, education and professional development providers, and technical assistance support that will spend the next 6 months designing an Expanded Learning/Youth Development Registered Apprenticeship Program for our network.
While this approach is new to us and our field, we are receiving guidance and technical assistance from the Partnership for Children and Youth who led the effort to establish the first Expanded Learning Program Leader Registered Apprenticeship Program with Girls Inc of Alameda County.
We are excited to share more as we go along this journey. In the meantime…
Want to learn more?
To connect with our Workforce Team about our apprenticeship work, email AJ Frigillana and Jess Zlotnicki
From our partner about expanded learning apprenticeships
Learn more about apprenticeships in our region: Northern California Apprenticeship Network
