Intentional recruitment is part of UpSkill approach

By Tiffany Gallegos Whitley

Spring is just around the corner and so is the next round of UpSkill Waco training courses. We are actively recruiting for Texas State Technical College’s “Construction Core” and McLennan Community College’s “Medical Office” courses, which will begin at the end of March.

We also hope to get the hospitality course back in the late spring and add two new courses in mechatronics and logistics this summer.

It’s been great to get back to coordinating these courses with our partners. We’ve taken the past few months to talk with more community partners and learn how we can better, more intentionally recruit individuals for UpSkill courses. Intentional recruitment takes a lot of work but is so important to ensuring we’re reaching the pockets of unemployed and underemployed community members we want to upskill and reskill.

It’s been great to see these efforts get noticed over the past few months, as well. UpSkill leaders have been invited by the Trellis Foundation to sit on a panel for their March Workforce Summit in Austin. Numerous education and workforce leaders from around the state will be present, including leaders from the Texas Workforce Commission, Texas Education Agency, and Higher Education Coordinating Board. Our panel will specifically cover education and workforce system alignment through collaboration and will include representatives from Houston and West Texas.

I feel proud our Waco community will be represented among these larger collaboratives across the state. I think this speaks volumes of the collaborative nature of our community and how we can be a place others look to for education and workforce development.

Overall, I look forward to representing our community at the summit this month and can’t wait to share updates next month on the late spring and summer courses that are in the works. As always, anyone interested in applying for an UpSkill Waco training course can go to our website at www.upskill-waco.org!

Tiffany Gallegos-Whitley is director of workforce initiatives for Prosper Waco.