July 29, 2009 Update

• Regional Forums Final Report
  
  
• Generating Interest in Green Economy Success
  
  
• One Step to Improved Regional Coordination of Dislocations
  
  
• Urban Institute Report Highlights Opportunities for the Workforce System to Engage with Registered Apprenticeship
  
  
• A Review of "Working Learners" -- A Report by the Center for American Progress
  

The Steel Valley Authority (SVA) is a public authority created by union, community and religious leaders to respond to the loss of more than 157,000 high-quality manufacturing jobs in western Pennsylvania. The SVA a regional development entity, intervenes with companies in crisis and employs a range of industrial retention tools, including early warning systems; worker and manager buy-outs; management consulting and financial packaging; training for labor and management. This article describes the Steel Valley Authority as well as its Strategic Early Warning Network (SEWN). SEWN provides distressed manufacturing businesses coordinated access to available resources, and designed to enable management and labor to quickly find common ground.

Linking economic development to workforce development can spur economic growth by aligning the needs of the community with the needs of industry. The Puget Sound Industrial Excellence Center (PSIEC), at the South Seattle Community College, s a collaborative effort to train the area’s low-income residents for employment in high-demand jobs and to assist established and emerging businesses in the area. Article describes the services and is an example of a an apprenticeship model being expanded to address the needs of the relatively unskilled and the needs of new and established businesses.