Phase 2 Sector Strategies Policy Academy Meeting

From July 21-23, teams from six states around the country met in Madison, WI as part of the Policy Academy portion of the Accelerating State Adoption of Sector Strategies project. The teams – from Maryland, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, and Wisconsin – included representatives from Governor’s offices, state workforce and economic development agencies, education and training institutions (both K-12 and higher ed), labor unions, employers, and wide variety of other stakeholders. Across the three days, the teams engaged in intense strategic planning designed to help them get their state sector strategies from ideas to action, and also spent time learning from one another and from states in the project’s Learning Network.

Highlights from Monday included a panel of Learning Network representatives from Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Massachusetts. Attendees told us that they found the session especially valuable because of the advice about what NOT to do, as much as for the specific examples about how sector strategies have been implemented in those states. The experience of these leading states is pointing to some interesting evolution in thinking about how sector strategies can have the most impact, and we’ll be inviting representatives from our Learning Network to share some of those lessons here at sectorstrategies.org.

Wisconsin Governer Jim Doyle addressed the group in the afternoon. Fresh from lunch with the Dalai Lama (also visiting Wisconsin that week, and staying in our hotel, in fact!), the Governor spoke passionately about how sector strategies are being implemented in Wisconsin and the kinds of impacts on workers, businesses, and systems that he expects to see from this work.

Tuesday morning kicked off with a panel presentation about the use of sector strategies to advance low-wage workers. This is a key focus of the second phase of the project. Brandon Roberts from Working Poor Families Project set the stage. Next, Tom Dubois from Instituto del Progresso Latino talked about the work they are doing to provide bridge programs in the health care industry for low-wage and low-English proficiency workers in Chicago (watch a video about this program below). Finally, NNSP presented on the ECCLI program in Massachusetts, and the great success the program has had in incenting employers to create career paths within the extended care industry.

Those are a few highlights from the program. Then attending teams worked really hard on their plans, and everyone seemed to leave the meeting feeling energized and ready to get sector strategies moving in their states. And if any members of the policy academy are reading this, please feel free to add a comment to this post about your experience at the meeting!