Ira Racoma (IR): I’m Ira with Job Forward, and for today’s partner spotlight, we are being joined by Joanne Molloy and Macey Muller from the University of New Hampshire’s Institute on Disability. Joanne and Macey, I’ll turn it over to you to give a brief introduction to yourselves.
Joanne Malloy (JM): Yes, hi, I’m Joanne Molloy. I’m a research associate professor at the Institute, as Ira said, and I’ve been there for 30 years, primarily working with communities and providers to develop evidence-based practices for children’s mental health. And Macey, I’ll turn it over to you.
Macey Muller (MM): Thanks, Joanne. Hi, I’m Macey Muller. I am a project director at the Institute on Disability. I work under Joanne with the Children’s Behavioral Health Team. And my main role since I started here in 2020 has been really focusing on workforce development training opportunities that we offer to your non-traditional students, adult learners, really, and we’ll get into that more today.
IR: Great. Thank you guys for joining us today.
So, the IOD is currently involved with two apprenticeship programs, Steps to Success and Building Futures Together. Could you guys tell us a little bit about these apprenticeship programs and your role in these?
MM: Yeah, I’ll go ahead and start, and I’ll have Joanne just kind of fill in the blanks. So, as I mentioned, I am the project director for Building Futures Together and Steps to Success. My main role has been to really support the project timeline and the benchmarks, making sure that we are focused and achieving those benchmarks, really focusing on recruitment and retention, supporting the trainees and the employer partners that we have in both programs, while really continuously improving and enhancing our skills, our program, based on the feedback surveys that we offer. So, Building Futures Together, really quickly, both Building Futures Together and Steps to Success are two of our workforce development apprenticeship training programs that we offer through the Institute on Disability at UNH. Building Futures Together began in 2020 based on a HRSA grant-funded opportunity.
It’s designed to focus on paraprofessional-level individuals that are working and training to become social and human services assistants in the behavioral health field. This can include peer support agencies, residential recovery organizations, family resource centers, community and state agencies, as well as schools. So, Building Futures Together is a three, eight-week course training.
So, that’s six months, and it’s paired with 2,000 hours or one year of on-the-job training. So, Steps to Success really follows a similar model where it’s 16 weeks of online learning and 2,000 hours of OJT, which is on-the-job training, but with a focus on behavioral health aides. So, a little bit different, a little bit geared more towards those with court diversion or juvenile justice-involved youth.
But both programs really zone in on the apprenticeship model, applying the skills that they learn in the coursework to their job and their role within the employers that they’re working with.
IR: And the university is providing the education for these apprenticeship programs for these two?
MM: Correct, yes. So, for Building Futures Together and Steps to Success, the online learning course portion of it is done through UNH, the Institute on Disability.
We use an online learning platform, Canvas, that is pretty mainstream through colleges and higher ed. And we offer digital badges, certificates, even college credit if they are interested in pursuing an advanced career or a degree. And then with the on-the-job training portion, we kind of guide them and support them in ways, but we really work with the employer partners, specifically with Building Futures Together.
But with Job Forward, we also partnered with Job Forward for the Steps to Success to really provide that wraparound support for the employer partners to understand the kind of ins and outs of the apprenticeship model and what is required.
IR: Great. Thanks, Macey. So how do you see the role of universities and colleges aligning what you guys do best with apprenticeship programs?
JM: I think that colleges and universities can offer an infrastructure that’s very robust for learning. We have experts in many fields that we can draw upon. We have experts within our own team that we’ve drawn upon to create the coursework or what you might call the related instruction.
So that’s really key. And we also, universities routinely offer internships and in the community for master’s level, bachelor’s level staff to apply the skills. So, I think that the university is well aligned to be able to provide this kind of training for people as well as offering them options for continuing their education in a more formal way.
I also think that universities are shifting, responding to the differences, the changes in the community and employers. And many universities, including ours, have created formal relationships with employers to help them grow their workforce. So, universities and colleges can offer a really great infrastructure for apprenticeships.
IR: Yeah, wonderful. So what experience do you guys bring that helps bridge the theory and the real-world application for apprentices in this field? Either you or others on your team, as you had mentioned, Joanne.
JM: Teaching professor here. I was brought on to create grants, run programs, grant-funded programs, primarily application based. In other words, not necessarily research based, but how do we translate what we know to be studies and research into real world community settings? We call it knowledge transfer, if you will. And as a person who’s worked in the communities and worked with communities about what their needs are and then read the research and being connected with national experts in the field, we have the expertise to take that knowledge and make it real for individuals in the field, which is where the rubber hits the road.
We won’t improve services for children and youth and families unless we do that. The real key is responding to what people can actually do in the field. It’s not always what you do in an experiment, a research experiment.
So, we have been very fortunate to educate ourselves and our team on implementation science, which is using these core strategies to help with that knowledge transfer. Because, again, just training a bunch of people doesn’t necessarily mean they’re going to do what they expected them to do in the field. So, we have expertise and employers have told us it’s what we provide is really very relevant to what they need to upskill their staff.
So, we know we’re on the right track.
MM: One thing I can add, just based on my personal experience, prior to this role, I worked in higher ed, but with students with learning disabilities and really providing them with the support that they needed to be successful. So I was really able to translate that experience to this role with adult learners and non-traditional students to be able to check on how they’re doing on the learning platform, check in with them, meet them kind of where they’re at, and work with the instructor to make sure that there’s some flexibility, there’s accommodations needed.
Because these individuals that are participating in our programs have a lot on their plate. They’re working full-time. They have kids.
You know, working odd hours or multiple jobs, whatever it may be to make their ends meet. So, we as our team for both programs really do try to meet the individuals, the participants where they’re at to have that flexibility and work with them to be successful.
IR: Yeah, and that kind of touches on another question that we have. I don’t think it’s in the order, but it’s a good question to go to. Can you tell us about the populations, maybe go into a little bit more in depth about the populations that are being served by each of these programs?
MM: Yeah, so I did touch upon that earlier a little bit just based on our recruitment efforts, looking at family resource centers and residential communities and state and community organizations and nonprofit individuals and places like that. But a lot of these individuals have lived-experience themselves, whether it’s in the justice involved youth or recovery support, mental health struggles, whether it’s within their family and experiencing intergenerational trauma or them themselves or a close personal friend.
So it’s really interesting to be able to see them use those experiences, but also their work experiences to really have these like aha moments in the learning. But then be able to take that and basically run with it to use it in their job and in their role. And in addition to that, though, in the coursework portion, there’s discussion board requirements on a weekly basis that are needed.
And a lot of these individuals come from all over, all over the state of New Hampshire, different organizations, different employers. But they create this almost like support group with each other by having these discussion and dialogues to be able to say, based on my experience or this client, not using any names or identifying any information, but they support each other and provide additional resources and community networks. That is really, really, great to see that just happens organically.
IR: So I know you have alluded to it earlier about your relationships with employers. So can you tell us a little bit more about the ways that you collaborate with employers to make sure that the training that is provided through these programs is industry aligned?
MM: Sure. Yeah. So from the very beginning with Building Futures Together, we created a leadership team. So we really do, from the very beginning, work with our community partners and organizations and employer partners to determine where the gaps are based on the training that is required already for these individuals as, let’s just say, certified recovery support workers. But like, what are they missing? What are they not getting in that training that maybe we can fill the gaps in and make sure that they’re fulfilling or upskilling or continuing to improve? So what we do is work with our leadership team, our employers, our community partners, when we’re going over the different requirements and class assignments and competency portfolios.
And we really focus on continuous quality improvement. And the sustainability of the program. Again, just kind of focusing, reflecting back what’s working, what’s not working.
We provide surveys, feedback surveys, whether it’s with the participants themselves or our employers or the mentors that are assigned to the participants. We really do collaborate together and update the competencies and skill statements and things that are needed based on the occupation and the employer specifics.
IR: Awesome. Touching on the competencies that you were just talking about, how do you align the instruction with the competencies that the apprentices are developing through their on-the-job training?
MM: Sure. So we started by developing the major domains and skills that care coordinators need when working with children, youth, and families in the behavioral health field. So kind of falling under Joanne’s team of children’s behavioral health, she has great experience, great knowledge and research under her belt to be able to understand where these domains, where we start really, having a starting point.
And then we worked with the Department of Labor, the Office of Apprenticeship, to identify the occupation that most aligns with our domains. So then we set about to create the coursework that teaches the theory and skills required for the specific occupations and develop the competencies and skill statements to reinforce the course content. So like I said, just learning from the coursework and then applying it to the on-the-job training.
So employers have told us that the courses and competencies are spot on with what they want from their peers and their paraprofessional staff.
IR: Awesome. So for building futures together as a more established, this is a two-part question, as a more established program, what would you say has been the impact to the community or for Steps to Success, which is the newer of the two programs and it just started in February of this year, what is your hope for how this program would impact the community?
MM: Yeah, so as I kind of briefly touched upon in prior questions, for building futures together, like we have used the feedback surveys and things like that to enhance their skills by upskilling, career advancement, even with the Steps to Success, I believe if we’ve really found or the participants have found a new excitement and interest in pursuing advanced training.
Degrees and certifications in the field. So, I think just continuing that retention, but also word of mouth to understand, you know, maybe you have your CRSW, but you could still continue to learn, right? And learn new skills and things like that. Also creating a dynamic and engaging workplace culture.
So by participating in one of these programs, these participants are able to share new topics and skills with their colleagues and establish more of a connection or a rapport with them by sharing this new knowledge, while also establishing new relationships through mentorship. And as I mentioned, that kind of support network feels within the online learning portion of it as well. Overall, I can say that the employers have seen a huge impact in providing this high-quality training and they could not otherwise afford it.
So we are offering this training for free based on grant funding or contracts that we have, and it has increased their skills, their confidence, their knowledge, and it’s been evident. The trainees also brought what they learned, as I mentioned, to the staff as well.
IR: Yeah, it’s an amazing dynamic between the university and the employers and the apprentices. Thank you both for taking the time to let us highlight this important work for National Apprenticeship Week, and thank you both for your collaboration with Job Forward. Awesome. Thank you so much for having us, and we’re happy to be here.