“It’s that moment, ‘Wow, where do I want to go?’ Is there a career I would like to do?”

Massie and a team of employment counselors partnered with WorkSource Klamath have the resources to help individuals answer these questions.

KCC, WorkSource Klamath and the East Cascades Workforce Investment Board teamed up Sept. 1 to officially offer workforce training for those seeking jobs and/or careers in Klamath and Lake counties through the federal Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act (WIOA).

KCC will also provide employment counseling onsite at KCC in January 2018.

The Central Oregon Intergovernment Council previously partnered with WorkSource Klamath to offer workforce skills training, before KCC pursued a contract. The KCC Board of Education approved a $594,000 contract in June to offer services under WIOA.

Massie said KCC is close to opening a career center office in partnership with WorkSource Oregon in the new Work Skills Technology Center, with an estimated starting date of January.

An employment counselor, or an individual who can help students seek training or an educational or career path, will be on-hand for those seeking assistance.

“The previous contractor had a lot of years in, and we were very lucky to draw in most of that staff,” Massie said.

“KCC is contracted to provide a certain set of employment counseling services and they really revolve around on-the-job training and skill-up training and education for workforce skills,” Massie said.

“Our team works as part of a partnership in WorkSource, so they are the frontline counselors for on the job training and for getting people trained and skilled-up to re-enter or transition into the workforce.”

Employment team

KCC hired on the four WorkSource staff on the WIOA team – known as the “Title 1B team” – which includes two adult education specialists, a youth education specialist and a support specialist, according to Massie.

Joe Waggener, who serves as the youth education specialist for Klamath County, is tasked with finding youth and young adults age 16 to 24 who are in need of high school credit recovery or other forms of education or employment counseling.

“Right now the outreach is primarily focused toward people who have previously dropped out of school for whatever reason,” Waggener said, emphasizing an effort to have students fulfill credit recovery or GED requirements.

Through the use of personality tests and other skill-identifying activities, Waggener assists youth and young adults identify their transferable skills, essentially helping them figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

“Getting your education opens you up to so many opportunities for employment, especially when you talk about a few credits here or a GED that’s not really going to take you that much time,” Waggener said.

College emphasis

Massie emphasized that many community colleges are moving in the direction of offering employment counseling, because they already offer so many similar resources.

“Community Colleges have been identified as an integral part of the workforce development system,” Massie said. “The kind of training, the ability to offer customized training, to offer training in specific industries, to offer non-credit or credit education, kind of put them as a central place to go to train the workforce, and to prepare people to go on to degree programs for other kinds of career programs. They were also the ones who were already open access, lower cost.

“And so a number of community colleges across the country and in Oregon have pursued that employment counseling title funding, because they’re already intimately working with that group.”

Randy Norris, who continues to manage the other teams at WorkSource, including Oregon Employment Department services, said the transition to KCC’s leadership has been “seamless.”

“They’re (WorkSource Klamath is) always working with businesses to help them connect to folks who are looking to them for employment,” Massie said.

“Our team is really focused on education, training and subsidized on-the-job training.

“We are still looking at, what are the things that we can build on?” Norris said. “What are the add-ons that we can provide? How do we leverage the resources that KCC has in training and opportunity and education?

Massie currently divides his time between Klamath and Lake counties, as well as spending time at KCC’s campus and the WorkSource Klamath office.

“In the future, my time in the building here is going to be expanded,” Massie said.

“But I feel like there’s really good partnership in the building so when you look at how this team functions within the larger partnership, I think that’s something that we’ve been able to continue and hopefully are expanding on and improving.”

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KCC Partners to Offer Workforce Training (H&N)