A Closer Look: The Generation Work Partnership in Indianapolis

As part of its Gen­er­a­tion Work™ ini­tia­tive, the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion is invest­ing in five part­ner­ships — in Cleve­land, Hart­ford, Indi­anapo­lis, Philadel­phia and Seat­tle — to explore new ways of help­ing young peo­ple gain the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence need­ed to secure jobs that pay fam­i­ly-sus­tain­ing wages.

This post, which focus­es on Indi­anapo­lis, is part of a series that explores how each part­ner­ship is work­ing to posi­tion young peo­ple — espe­cial­ly youth and young adults of col­or and those from low-income com­mu­ni­ties — for work­place success.

The Chal­lenge

In Indi­anapo­lis, tra­di­tion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing mod­els are fail­ing to help young peo­ple — espe­cial­ly youth and young adults of col­or — gain the skills, cre­den­tials and con­nec­tions they need to devel­op well-pay­ing careers.

Though the local labor mar­ket over­whelm­ing­ly requires edu­ca­tion past high school, only 39% of res­i­dents in Indi­anapo­lis and the greater Mar­i­on Coun­ty (ages 25 to 64) hold a post­sec­ondary cre­den­tial. This sta­tis­tic is 9 per­cent­age points below the nation­al average.

The Partnership’s Approach

The Gen­er­a­tion Work Part­ner­ship in Indi­anapo­lis is seek­ing to inte­grate ser­vices into adult edu­ca­tion pro­grams — includ­ing one-on-one coach­ing, occu­pa­tion­al train­ing and job place­ment — that can help posi­tion young peo­ple for a well-pay­ing career.

As part of these efforts, the part­ner­ship is ask­ing adult edu­ca­tion pro­grams to inte­grate com­po­nents of a coach­ing mod­el that Good­will of Cen­tral and South­ern Indi­ana devel­oped for use in its Excel Cen­ter®, a free pub­lic char­ter school for adults.

The mod­el uti­lizes coach­es who are trained in top­ics like equi­ty and inclu­sion, finan­cial lit­er­a­cy, and men­tal health and pairs them with young peo­ple who are work­ing toward spe­cif­ic edu­ca­tion­al, employ­ment and finan­cial goals. The mod­el also calls for con­nect­ing par­tic­i­pants with sup­ple­men­tary ser­vices, like trans­porta­tion and child-care assistance.

Key Part­ners

• Good­will of Cen­tral & South­ern Indi­ana, a non­prof­it, oper­ates The Excel Cen­ter, which is a free pub­lic school for adults who are pur­su­ing their high school diplo­ma and seek­ing help enter­ing the workforce.
• Indiana’s Depart­ment of Work­force Devel­op­ment over­sees all state-led train­ing, employ­ment and adult edu­ca­tion programs.
• EmployIndy serves as the local work­force devel­op­ment board for Mar­i­on Coun­ty. The nonprofit’s busi­ness solu­tions team con­nects with local employ­ers to bet­ter under­stand their work­force needs and align pro­gram­ming accordingly.

Defin­ing Success

To pre­pare more young peo­ple in Indi­anapo­lis for well-pay­ing career oppor­tu­ni­ties, the Gen­er­a­tion Work part­ner­ship is focused on inte­grat­ing indi­vid­u­al­ized coach­ing and work­force devel­op­ment ser­vices into more adult edu­ca­tion pro­grams. Such an effort calls for improv­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and coor­di­na­tion among work­force agen­cies, com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions and employers.

Read More About Gen­er­a­tion Work in Indianapolis