Connect Long Island Partnership
New York - Connect Long Island Partnership
Workforce Innovation Submitted By: HempsteadWorks
Community Challenge/Problem
Long Island needed to attract, develop and retain workforce talent for its largest and fastest growing industries. To accomplish this would require an organized, regional effort to align the services of multiple organizations, working together to achieve higher quality services for employers, job seekers and incumbent workers throughout the region. The partners who collaborated to plan this initiative included representatives of the local workforce investment boards for the Town of Hempstead/City of Long Beach, the Town of Oyster Bay Consortium and Suffolk County, along with the New York State Department of Labor (NYSDOL), New York State Empire State Development and the Long Island Forum for Technology (LIFT).
Board Solution/Innovation
These partners combined to establish the Connect Long Island Partnership, consisting of a comprehensive array of stakeholders from industry, economic development, education, workforce, labor, community-based organizations. The Partnership was launched through a region-wide symposium, before a specific funding stream was available. That event led to the development of a collaborative proposal, submitted pursuant to a NYSDOL Regional Economic Transformation Grant. The grant was awarded to LIFT, creating a significant source of revenue, through which the three local workforce investment areas of the region conducted strategic planning and sector-based training. The success of the NYSDOL Transformation Grant led to the award of a Regional Innovation Grant by the U.S. Department of Labor. Using these grant funds, the Partnership gathered workforce intelligence regarding industry worker skill demands, convened consortia to pursue new grant opportunities, and aligned partners and vendors to improve the continuum of economic development, education and workforce services.
Outcomes & Results
Through these efforts, the Partnership accessed over $2.5 million in regional workforce grant funding over a three-year period, and convened consortia to apply for future funding opportunities. The program increased regional training capacity by over 2,400 training slots. Efforts also included a SWOT Analysis for regional economic transformation and the creation of an implementation plan. In addition, the Partnership developed technology for mapping industry locations and worker skill clusters and applied emergency management planning techniques to evaluate and improve rapid response services.
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