PIN Weblog

PRINCETON, NJ, February 28, 2008 – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has awarded $3.5 million in grants to projects in eight states to help advance the careers of frontline health care workers by providing training to build skills, increase earning potential and improve the quality of care and services that patients receive. The grants are part of Jobs to Careers: Promoting Work-Based Learning for Quality Care, a national initiative that supports a variety of projects to develop the skills of workers who deliver direct health care and services. Workers who may benefit include medical assistants, health educators, laboratory technicians, home health aides, substance abuse counselors and dietary aides.

Across the United States, 4.7 million frontline health care workers provide patients and clients with preventive and early intervention services, chronic illness management strategies, and long-term and post-hospitalization rehabilitative care. Despite their critical and expanding role in delivering health care, these workers earn less than $40,000 per year on average and have limited opportunities to build skills or advance professionally.
This is the second round of grants under Jobs to Careers, a four-year, $15.8 million national initiative of RWJF, in collaboration with the Hitachi Foundation and the U.S. Department of Labor. The program encourages partnerships among employers, educational institutions and other organizations to improve training and advancement opportunities for their frontline workers. The partnership organizations are working to implement long-term systems changes and test new models of work-based learning – an approach to adult education that emphasizes the employee as learner, and the work process itself as a source of learning. Boston-based Jobs for the Future (JFF) serves as the Jobs to Careers national program office.

“Along with the strong partnerships, work-based learning is the cornerstone of this initiative,” said Barbara Dyer, president and CEO of the Hitachi Foundation. “It holds promise to be an invaluable tool to help workers learn how to solve real problems on the job and to help employers figure out the best strategies to train future workers so they can succeed in jobs with better pay and increased responsibilities.”

The eight projects represent diverse settings, including hospitals, long-term care facilities, and community and behavioral health centers in cities and remote villages. The new grants bring the total number of Jobs to Careers projects to seventeen. To see them all, visit www.jobs2careers.org.

One of the eight grants was awarded to PIN partner MS Hospital Association Health, Research & Educational Foundation, Madison, Mississippi. The Mississippi Jobs to Careers Initiative is a partnership of the MS Hospital Association Health, Research & Educational Foundation, MS Office of Nursing Workforce (which manages the effort), Central MS Medical Center, and Hinds Community College. The initiative will provide frontline medical center workers with opportunities to increase their skills, thereby reducing high turnover rates and vacancies among ancillary staff and improving the quality of care provided to consumers. The medical center, with other partners, will develop a training curriculum; revise human resource policies to include a career ladder for frontline workers with wage increases, recognition, and rewards; and establish the work ethic needed to sustain a continual work-based learning model. Hinds Community College will develop courses, policies, and processes to provide classes on the medical center campus. The curricula will include short-term, challenging instruction blocks that apply immediately in the health care setting and lead to certificates and academic credits for learning accomplishments.
Web sites:
http://www.mhanet.org
http://www.monw.org
http://www.centralmississippimedicalcenter.com
http://www.hindscc.edu