The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded a total of $1.7 million to two local projects to help 200 women and their children to self-sufficiency.
Brighton Center and United Way of Greater Cincinnati each have received $850,000 for projects that will run for 30 months from May 2015 to October 2017. With 66% of the children in poverty in single female headed households in our region, this funding has the potential to break the generational cycle of poverty by helping families, as a unit, move towards permanent economic security.
Both local projects are part of a new pilot study, Supporting Transitions to Employment for Parents (STEPS).
The grants are part of the foundation’s $11.6 million national effort with 14 community-based workforce organizations around the country focused on increasing employment, workforce mobility and family economic security through a two-generation approach.
“This grant allows us to further advance our region’s economic growth while making strides to eliminate generational poverty,” said Jodi Geiser, tax partner, Ernst & Young, and member of United Way’s Impact Cabinet and Women’s Leadership Council. “Our employers in expanding industries such as healthcare, construction and manufacturing have open positions, but lack qualified applicants. Through a collaborative, multi-generational approach, we will train and produce the qualified candidates needed, and provide our most vulnerable children a better opportunity to succeed in school and life. Our region is one step closer to achieving our goals”
Brighton Center’s project, Step Forward, will increase greater educational, employment, and economic security outcomes for unemployed mothers and their children through advancing formal partnerships between workforce development and early care stakeholders serving children through the age of eight.
Step Forward, will create a partnership model where Brighton Center’s Center for Employment Training collaborates with the Early Childhood Education department, in addition to external early childhood education partners, Pre-K, and K-5 elementary schools. These cross sector partnerships will work on breaking down traditional silos, and work together more formally to remove barriers and meet the needs faced by single mothers.
“We are excited for this opportunity to advance employment outcomes for single moms while also reducing childcare barriers that can hinder their success,” said Wonda Winkler, vice president at Brighton Center.
Last year alone, Brighton Center’s Workforce Development and Early Childhood Education programs served over 26,000 individuals. Founded in 1966, Brighton Center uniquely partners with individuals and families through the individualized bundling of services based on their hopes and dreams for the future.
UWGC’s project, Cincinnati STEPS, will be in conjunction with two nationally recognized initiatives managed by UWGC: Partners for a Competitive Workforce and United Way Success By 6®. PCW is an employer-led collaborative of more than 150 partners focused on meeting employer demand by growing the skills of the current and future workforce. Success By 6® leads the regional effort to make high quality early childhood education and kindergarten readiness a top priority for resources and funding.
“United Way of Greater Cincinnati is thrilled to receive this funding from the Kellogg Foundation,” said Rob Reifsnyder, president of UWGC. “These funds will allow us to learn how to change systems, policies and programs to address the needs of children and their parents together. By working across generations, families can harness their full potential and put the entire family on the path to permanent economic security.”
PCW and Success By 6® will work to build strategic partnerships so more low-income mothers attain family-sustaining work in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky region and their children thrive – a new approach the grant makes possible. The grant will provide a key opportunity to change early childhood and workforce training systems to better support mothers and their children. The systems will be co-designed with the mothers to help them achieve financial stability and provide an important boost for child outcomes.
“This grant makes it possible for us to take this critical work in a direction we’ve wanted to move for a long time, and will accelerate results for children and their parents,” says Janice Urbanik, executive director, Partners for a Competitive Workforce.
From United Way of Greater Cincinnati