NW PROMISE

NW Promise is a $6 million four-year grant that seeks to train and place historically under-represented populations into Healthcare (HC) and Tech (IT) occupations with a solid career pathway into sustainable, living wage employment. Training resources are focused on the long-term unemployed, under-employed, incumbent workers, people of color, English language learners, people with disabilities, low-income residents, and other populations facing barriers to employment. Increasing workforce diversity in the healthcare field is seen as an important contributor to these goals and has been a key area of focus for all employers within our local region.

NW Promise in funded through the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL-ETA). The CWWC is made up of Clackamas Workforce Partnership (CWP), Workforce Southwest Washington (WSW) and Worksystems (WSI) all of whom are partners on the grant, and have come together to address the collective workforce challenges faced by our local business community. NW Promise provides a great deal of services to our participants such as Career Coaching, Mentoring, Support Services and Tuition-Free Training. The program also works with Incumbent Workers (IW), in order provide resources and opportunities to our business community to up-skill and re-tool some of their existing workforce. NW Promise will help develop and grow regional partnerships between workforce agencies, education & training providers and employers in several local industries. The CWWC is joined by leaders from the five largest health systems (Kaiser Permanente, Legacy Health, Oregon Health & Sciences University, PeaceHealth and Providence Health & Services), the Oregon Nurses Association, SEIU Local 49, and many others who are working together to advance health equity, improve patient care quality and eliminate health care disparities.

As the primary driver of the grant, the Columbia-Willamette Workforce Collaborative (CWWC) focused on sector-based career pathways while providing training to meet the needs of workers and businesses alike. Rather than working in siloes, the workforce system, numerous education and training providers, economic development professionals and key industry partners have come together to align public and private resources in response to the employer demand and to offer innovative, evidenced-based education and job training opportunities to those seeing to pursue careers within these sectors.