The East Central Ohio Educational Service Center (ECOESC) hosted a Belmont County Workforce Collaborative meeting on January 26. There was a similar meeting in December for Guernsey County and a meeting is scheduled for March 1 for the Tuscarawas County Workforce Collaborative.

The Workforce Collaboratives are spearheaded by ECOESC’s Career Navigation Department. Those in attendance included school employees, administrators, local businesses, public administration office employees, and higher education officials.

The goal of the collaboratives is to allow for an outlet to discuss topics in industry and education and to facilitate conversations and relationships between businesses and educators. “We facilitate conversations between business/industry and education to best prepare our future workforce and to provide training and networking options as well,” said ECOESC Lead Career Navigator Keri Rosser.

The Belmont County Workforce Collaborative Meeting was a first step to explain to local businesses and industry leaders new graduation requirements and explain why registered pre-apprenticeships are valuable to students.

ECOESC is currently in the middle of the application process to become a registered pre-apprenticeship sponsor. “This will allow school districts to offer the programs to students for career exploration but also to meet the “Show Competency” and “Show Readiness” areas of the graduation requirements,” said Rosser.  “This is also a great way for local businesses to get involved to create a pipeline of potential employees for the future.”

A future goal is to have meetings periodically throughout the year but there are no additional meetings on the calendar as of now.