Core Group Meeting Minutes - November 3, 2011

Missoula Community Management Team
Core Group Meeting
November 3, 2011

Child Care Resources – Michelle
Child Care Resources (CCR) is in the middle of a major strategic planning effort, which has included major marketing decisions. They have a new logo, reflecting their organizations commitment to assisting child care professionals. Right now caseloads at CCR are high, because TANF is high. They are working on a Transition Grant to assist families who have children in child care who obtain employment and are moved from eligible to ineligible status due to the increase in wages. Sometimes a small increase in wages results in the loss of substantial child care assistance. The Transition Grant would help step families down from the child care assistance once their income increases. The percentage of help that CCR provided would decrease each month. Depending on budgets, they could be starting use a waiting list of prospective participants. Unemployment is high, and child care providers are struggling. Right now any referral calls for child care in Missoula are routed through the Great Falls center. Responsibility is being moved to clients to navigate a system, rather than being offered locally.

Lifelong Learning Center – Monique
The Lifelong Learning Center (LLC) is serving a high level of students right now. They have a few new programs, including Family and Parent Literacy Services. This program takes family literacy on the road, into 4 Title I elementary schools in Missoula. The program provides Adult Basic Education (ABE) services and parent and family literacy activities in those schools. The LLC is restructuring, with a focus on customer service. They have centralized their clerical functions, and have trained all front desk staff in all areas of operations. They have an evening advisor for ABE, and this is a different person from the Instructor. The advisor is there to help ABE participants plan their steps through ABE. They are seeing a current influx of younger students into ABE, as well as some Roseburg employees. The LLC has partnered with Job Service to offer the Transition to College program. The LLC is converting their TABE to an online test, and in the near future (by 2014) all GED testing will be online. Individuals will be able to obtain the results of the tests immediately. The new TABE test will adjust levels of the testing to the performance of the individual, removing the need for level placement testing prior to the TABE tests. After the GED test moves to a fully online process (within a year), the LLC will still administer the GED tests. They hope to get students in to take the GED very quickly after they decide to stop their formal education.

Human Resource Council – Maggie
Right now all the programs at the Human Resource Council are busy. Low Income Energy Assistance (LIEAP) is starting up and they are preparing for the winter season. There have been large cuts to this program. This is a serious issue because landlords can evict renters who are not paying utilities. There is a new WORC program starting in Ravalli County, the goal is to help people obtain on the job training (OJT) before they are on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). The program will be coming to Missoula also. The Youth program is being reviewed at the state level. Kids in school need real career exploration and help with job readiness skills, Maggie is hoping that Missoula County Public Schools and the Human Resource Council can partner on these topics and that the HRC can provide training to the students of MCPS. The group discussed youth employment programs and their issues and outcomes through time. Maggie suggested that youth counselors from HRC could provide classroom training. This fits well with the 21st Century model for education which MCPS has outlined. Right now families and systems are overwhelmed, so there is a real need to figure out how we can partner, reduce duplication, and enhance collaboration. There is also a strong effort to help any student who has chosen to drop out of school obtain their GED as quickly as possible after leaving MCPS.

Vocational Rehabilitation – Janet
Every state is audited, and because of emergencies in other states Montana is being audited early. Vocational Rehabilitation (VR) has been working on their Transitions program to assist students after leaving school. They have two new counselors in Missoula and one position available in Kalispell. Right now there is a lot of attention on the transitions between school and work. VR is teaching a Motivation Enhancement class at the LLC. This class is focused on helping people get motivated to go on to employment after being on assistance programs. It helps prepare people to take the steps and make the changes that will result in moving ahead in employment.

Missoula Job Service – Saundra
There are many people talking about relocating to North Dakota due to the strength of the economy and the job openings available there. The Business Expansion and Retention program (BEAR) has been reinvigorated with the new participation of the Missoula Economic Project, and BEAR visits and referrals for businesses interested in Incumbent Worker Training and OJT programs have increased. Project Homeless Connect will be held in January, on the 25th or 26th. More information will be available soon. Job Service is waiting to decide about the outlook for a job fair next year. There is a new change in Unemployment regulations that has caused hundreds of people in Missoula to have their Job Service profiles inactivated, those people have been notified to come in to the Job Service to reactivate their profiles and have been instructed to check in with Job Service at least every 90 days.

Full Group Meeting
The group discussed pulling together the full CMT for a large group meeting in January, on the 12th. This meeting would be from 3-5 at the Lifelong Learning Center. The group also discussed a cross training focused on youth services or economic development. A possible date for that would be on February 24th at the Lifelong Learning Center. Monique volunteered to plan out how that could be arranged and scheduled. In our brainstorming we discussed having short 20-30 minute sessions, with four sessions available for people to attend. We could have one introductory session with everyone together, and Monique suggested a speaker like Simon Sinek talking about the Golden Circle. Some breakout sessions could include:
MCPS discussing the 21st Century Model for Education
HRDC’s Youth WIA programs
Missoula Economic Partnership (featuring representatives from MEP and the City)
UM and UM COT discussing opportunities for youth
A workforce track with JSEC or various business people

Meeting adjourned.