IMTfolio: Opening Advanced Manufacturing Career Pathways to People with Disabilities
Project Title
Apprenticeship Inclusion Models: Expanding Career Pathways for People with Disabilities in the Industrial Manufacturing Technician Registered Apprenticeship Program
Project Description
CAST is partnering with Jobs for the Future and Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership to pilot a personalized and portable e-portfolio within the Industrial Maintenance Technician registered apprenticeship pathway. The effort will target the pre-apprenticeship program, with entry-level advanced manufacturing workers.
The Industrial Maintenance Technician pre-apprenticeship program addresses workers’ skills and training gaps and prepares them for career advancement and advanced standing in higher-skilled apprenticeships. The Industrial Maintenance Technician pathway incorporates a number of innovative and effective practices, including a flexible approach that enables workers to accelerate their completion by demonstrating mastery of skills and competencies.
A critical barrier that prevents individuals with disabilities from entering production positions is documenting their prior learning in relevant skills. The goal of this IMTfolio pilot is to address the challenge of assessing readiness for the Industrial Maintenance Technician apprenticeship pathway and to help potential apprentices have their own personalized portfolio that documents prior learning in IMT competencies. CAST has already developed e-portfolio software, STEMFolio, and Jobs for the Future and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, a long-standing and well-respected intermediary, will work with CAST to identify key IMT competencies, conduct focus groups, and co-design sessions to better understand areas of applicable prior learning. CAST will then update the software with IMT competencies and challenges and collaborate with Jobs for the Future and Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership to implement the e-portfolio in pre-apprenticeship programs in Wisconsin and Minnesota that assess participant preparedness for the Industrial Maintenance Technician apprenticeship pathway.
Timeline
2019 – 2020
Funder
Office of Disability Employment Policy, U.S. Department of Labor
Partners
Social Policy Research Associates (SPR)
Wheelhouse Group
Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership
Jobs for the Future
Project Leadership
Sam Catherine Johnston, Project Director
Contact
For more information or questions about IMTfolio, please email workforce@cast.org.