Community Health Worker Apprenticeship: An innovative labor-management partnership model, integrating systems and braiding funding sources to help get the long-term unemployed back to work

With many traditional sources of job training funds constrained by state-level budgetary austerity and sequestration of federal discretionary spending, Labor-Management Partnerships supported by employer contributions have important roles to play as fiscally-stable, forward-looking leaders in the workforce development field. The Philadelphia-based District 1199C Training & Upgrading Fund has led the recent development of a Community Health Worker (CHW) Registered Apprenticeship, adding an “earn and learn” component to a CHW training program designed and implemented jointly by Temple University Health System, the Temple Center for Social Policy & Community Development, and the Training Fund. This work has grown out of the Training Fund’s commitment to serving both affiliated union members and low-income, long-term unemployed community residents. This Apprentice-ship demonstrates an innovative and effective approach to integrating the education, workforce development and health systems, and braiding funding streams to put long-term unemployed area residents back to work in a high-growth emerging occupation in the healthcare sector.