Project Details

Agency Name: U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), Women’s Bureau (WB)

Agency Type: Federal

Services: Technical Assistance

Client Goals

The overarching goal is to provide resources to increase women’s participation in apprenticeship. The primary outcomes are: a National Symposium on Women in Apprenticeship with an accompanying Summary Report and a Women in Apprenticeship Case Based Resource Guide.

Safal Approach

The WB has a long history of expanding women’s access to employment and training opportunities. Apprenticeship programs, when implemented effectively, provide workers with a career path featuring paid on-the-job instruction, skills development and mentorship, while at the same time providing employers with a steady source of highly trained and productive workers. These programs have the potential to grow into a critical and successful component of America’s workforce strategy but are currently underutilized. This project calls for both the complete organization and content creation for a national convening, along with case site visit based reports to help with the implementation and expansion of apprenticeships for women. Major activities include: 1) Conducting a national Symposium for 150 people with expert panels and breakout sessions; 2) Producing and designing a 30-page paper outlining the Symposium purpose and synthesizing topics presented at the meeting for WB’s consideration in improving women’s access to apprenticeship programs; 3) Conducting site visits to one pre-apprenticeship and three apprenticeship programs to inform the development of the Case Based Resource Guide; and 4) Producing a resource guide for a variety of stakeholders, featuring four in-depth case studies of pre-/apprenticeship programs. The guide includes practices from each featured program with entirely replicable tips and tools for implementation of these types of programs.