Workforce Development Outcomes

The Akron Urban League’s Workforce Development department connects employers and job seekers to build strong, equitable relationships so each party can thrive. Every year, we improve the lives of Summit County citizens, pairing up people to succeed! See what we have made happen since January 1, 2022.

Summit NEXT is for individuals who experience a reduction in public assistance benefits due to an increase of income, commonly known as the “benefits cliff.” NEXT provides outreach, engagement, job coaching and retention services. We provide household budgeting, financial planning, and debt removal to maintain and advance employment and self-sufficiency. Participants can earn up to $4,000 if all employment and performance benchmarks are achieved. 

WFD Training In partnership with Stark State College, the Akron Urban League recruits students interested in exploring a career in nursing. The Stark State College State Tested Nurse Aide (STNA) course offers classes that consists of classroom, practice lab, and clinical hours for a total of 75 required hours. The course is approved by the Ohio Department of Health and the Ohio Department of Higher Education. and after the course, students are eligible to take the state test to become certified as a State Tested Nurse Aide. Below is an update on training sessions with AUL enrollment data.

Stark State STNA Program

Ambassador Program

The 2022 Neighborhood Job Ambassador Program matches healthcare professionals with men and women starting careers in the medical field. It is funded by Conxus, administered by the Akron Urban League and The Well CDC is a participating partner of the program.

A total of 13 healthcare professionals/ambassadors and 13 STNAs/ jobseekers were paired. As of July 28, 2022, the program had 13 active ambassador/job seeker pairs. The AUL currently has ten active ambassador/jobseeker pairs, and The Well CDC has three active ambassador/jobseeker pairs; the remaining ambassador/jobseeker pairs are now in the onboarding phase.

Seven of the ten AUL ambassador/jobseeker pairs have completed the program. The remaining three ambassador/jobseeker pairs have completed between 3-5 mentoring sessions. 3 out of the 5 Well CDC ambassador/jobseeker pairs are meeting and completing between 2-5 mentoring sessions.

During the beginning of the program, all ambassadors developed an “Individual Career Plan” with their assigned jobseeker. The Individual Career Plan allowed each jobseeker to identify their long-term and short-term career goals and put them into writing. Removing employment barriers such as a CQE or record expungement was a crucial first step for some job seekers.

For the remainder of the program, ambassadors worked one-on-one with their assigned jobseeker to accomplish their short-term goals and begin moving towards their long-term career and education goals. Individual Career Plans reflected that 100% of the job seekers would like to advance their career in the Healthcare industry, 80% of the job seekers had a long-term career goal of becoming an LPN, and 20% of the job seekers have applied to an LPN program. See our program statistics below.