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Contributed by Tim Polk of
the Southgate Service Center On December 6, 2002 the Southeast Michigan Community Alliance (SEMCA) held a meeting with a small group of computer training vendors and its welfare reform providers. The purpose of the meeting was to provide information and an opportunity for these vendors to discuss and share their available training facilities with SEMCA’s welfare reform providers. The presentations were conducted by representatives from Comp USA in Novi, Career Companions Inc. in Lincoln Park and the Center for Computer Technology in Monroe. Each vendor was chosen for its relevant training curriculums, reasonable costs and past experience in working with welfare reform customers. In attendance were representatives from SEMCA’s service centers including the Downriver Community Conference (DCC), Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), Ross IES Taylor, Ross IES Livonia, Monroe County Employment and Training Department (MCETD), Employment and Training Designs Inc. (ETD), Employment and Training Designs in Highland Park, Arab-American and Chaldean Council (ACC), and the American Society for Employers (ASE) Mentoring Program. The need for high quality and cost-effective training options for welfare reform customers provided the impetus for this meeting. Each training vendor presented its curriculum, costs, and training options to the group in an informal setting. Vendors fielded questions from the various providers present. The meeting format was acknowledged by everyone in attendance as an excellent way to gain information about training options for customers served by welfare reform. It also gives training providers an opportunity to benchmark their offerings against what other training providers are doing. Vendors acknowledged that the small roundtable concept enabled them to gain understanding of other training opportunities. They also saw a need for a future follow-up meeting to continue dialogue and common concern for quality training offerings for customers served by SEMCA’s welfare reform programs. Follow-up and additional roundtable meetings with additional categories of training vendors are in the planning stage by SEMCA’s Welfare Reform Training provider committee. |