MOUNT VERNON — Knox County’s job placement agency is ramping up youth outreach and workforce training programs this fall.
As part of Workforce Month in September, Brandy Booth, workforce administrator for Ohio Means Jobs Knox County, discussed the agency’s initiatives with county commissioners. OMJ is locally known as the Opportunity Knox Employment Center.
Booth said the agency launched a social media campaign this month aimed at reframing public perception of workforce development.
According to Booth, it is a balancing act.
“Workforce isn’t just about getting somebody a job who’s unemployed. It’s about building a future talent pipeline,” she said.
“We’ve learned that if you don’t have good employers and good jobs, then you’re not going to get good job seekers. And if you don’t have good job seekers, your employers are not going to come to the table. So we’ve got to bring them both to the table.”
As part of that effort, the office designated September as attendance month.
“What we consistently hear from employers are attendance problems. We have tardiness; we have absences,” Booth said.
However, Booth said schools say they do not have teeth to enforce school attendance.
“So, we came up with an idea last year that we would put together a campaign to start the school year off, really highlighting for students the importance of school attendance and how it can affect your career later on,” she said.
The agency worked with a Knox County Career Center digital media intern last summer to produce a series of videos. Students in the agency’s summer youth program wrote, acted in, filmed and edited the videos.
OMJ is releasing the videos weekly on its Facebook and Instagram pages.
Career Quest set for Oct. 7
Booth said the attendance campaign leads into OMJ’s annual Career Quest event slated for Oct. 7.
Career Quest introduces eighth- and 10th-grade students to local career and educational pathways. The event added two additional “career ready” stations to address bottlenecks reported last year.
The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine will bring a goat for a hands-on suturing demonstration using practice materials. Other exhibitors include a media company, law enforcement and fire, and local manufacturers.
Booth said the goal is for every Knox County student to attend the event twice — once in eighth grade and again in 10th grade — before graduating.
“We were very strategic about that,” she said.
“Eighth-graders because they are getting ready to go into high school. They need to start thinking … do they need to schedule specific classes to be college ready, or are they going to go to the career center?
“In 10th grade, they’re making that decision.”
GED students and youth in the agency’s youth programs are also invited to participate.
Booth said the event now ties student participation to a graded curriculum of five lessons leading up to the event. The event serves as a sixth lesson.
Summer youth programs, VR training expand
The agency served 25 youth through its summer employment program and 12 through summer credit recovery this year. Booth said all credit recovery participants completed their required credits.
The office continues to expand its virtual reality career lab, offered through a partnership with the Greater Ohio Workforce Board. The program includes simulations across a range of industries, including aviation, utility line work and emergency medicine. It is available to the public as well as schools.
Requests for individual training accounts for adults and youth are on the uptick. Employer requests for incumbent workers remain steady.
Booth said some Knox County industries, such as health care, still need workers, but manufacturing needs fewer.
“For the most part we’re pretty stable,” she said. “We’re hearing from most of our employers that they’ve got better applicants, people are staying, that they don’t have positions open.”
The Small Business Administration awarded the OSU Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence a grant to create 34 micro trainings in various manufacturing fields.
The center asked Ohio Means Jobs to host the trainings.
Policy changes ahead
Booth said the agency is preparing for several regulatory changes in the coming months, including the state’s roll-out of a new unemployment insurance system.
The state will launch Buckeye UI in October.
Booth outlined recent expansions to work requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which now apply to residents ages 16 to 64, providing the 16- or 17-year-old is not in school.
Previously it applied to 18 to 54.
Non-exempt, able-bodied adults without dependents are limited to three months of benefits within a 36-month period unless they are working or progressing in their case management.
Booth identified untreated mental health conditions and transportation access as the most common barriers preventing participants from meeting those requirements.
In contrast, Ohio Works First, the state’s cash assistance program for families allows caseworkers greater flexibility to tailor services to individual barriers rather than assigning uniform program activities.
Booth noted the agency’s total caseload for the program has fallen to fewer than 15 families, down from an average of about 250 per case manager when she began her career in 2013.
“The majority of the people who are receiving assistance are working. They’re just not making enough money,” she said.
Booth said new Medicaid work requirements are expected to take effect in January, though the state has not finalized specific guidelines.
Indications are they will mirror SNAP requirements that the individual progress and cover ages 16 to 64.
Agency staff training on the changes is scheduled for December. Booth said it remains unclear whether the state will require local governments to help fund the program.
