Good afternoon. I'll call to order the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, Social Services, Committee Meeting for November 25th, 2024. May I have a roll call please? Supervisor Miley, excuse, supervisor Tam. Thank you very much and we'll start with the informational item on the overview of the early childhood apprenticeship program. Thank you Supervisor Tam. I'll ask Dr. Roslin Heinemann, Director of Workforce Development of the YMCA of the East Bay to step forward to the podium. Good morning. My name is Dr. Roslyn Heinemann. I also brought one of our success coordinators, Freddie Castillo, who's going to be doing a little bit of co-presenting with me as well. Good morning again. Just thank you all for having me to the Board of Supervisors meeting. I'm really looking forward to presenting to you about the Early Educator Apprentice Program and our partnership with Coworks. We can go ahead to the next slide. Okay, so just to give a little bit of background for everybody, if you're not familiar with the Early Educator program, we all know that there is a stark increase for the need of ECE educators in Alameda County and actually across the nation, but we'll just focus on Alameda County for now. These vacancies range from about 2000, a little bit over 2000, of unfilled early educator positions. And so there's about 9,000 more early educators that still need to be seated in these roles within the next five years. We also have issues with ongoing attrition. So there's about 800 early educators that are estimated to have left the field. This can bring from any reason from pay to lack of appreciation to difficulties in the classroom with children behaviors. So there's really a wide array of reasons why we have such a big gap in retaining our ECE educators. We're also seeing the aging of educators. About 40% of early educators are over the age of 50, and more than 50% of early childhood, early childhood center directors are over the age of 50. So it's very important and there's an urgent need to train the next generation of ECE educators within the field and make sure they're qualified to be in the classroom. Additionally, the accessibility of higher education. So about 25% of early educators attend some college, but did not obtain their diploma, and about 8% only have a high school, a GED. So this program really helps not only educate our teachers in the classroom, but provide them with a quality education at zero to no cost. So how are we doing this? How are we leveraging this program in Alameda County? So to address this, we have about like a trifecta effect of funding coming in to support this program. A one being the Alameda County Social Services Agency through CalWorks Single allocations, the first five counties, Prop 10, and then tipping point community. This is very innovative, it's cross-sectional. You know, also call it braided funding or blended funding to enable us to reach this bottom line of our program design and for the best use of public funds to support the ECAP program. So just to give you a rundown, as I mentioned before, we have our funders, Alameda County, first five, and tipping point. We at the YMCA are the lead implementers. So we have a registered apprentice program through the Department of Labor, and we're also sponsored by ESEPS, which is the early childhood education pathways to success. In addition to that, we work with multiple partners across Alameda and Contra Costa County to provide EC education to our apprentices. This ranges from Shabo College, Contra Costa College, Cal State East Bay, Los McDonald's College, Berkeley City College, Advanced, which is a newer college that provides education for the bachelor's degree, excuse me, and then merit college as well. Program overview. So this is kind of a multi-functional program that we have established at the YMCA. We have ongoing recruitment of Cow Works participants. This happens through some key partners at the first five Alameda County's office. I'm Colleen Fanfong, Angela Cabrera. They really help us identify and verify any Cal Works opportunities that are in Alameda County. From there we go out, we recruit whether that be tabling, fares, any type of events where we know we'll have a large power works population. We also station at libraries, pass out flyers, and also send information to our apprentice program partners in order to get these apprentices in the program educated and trained. Next to that, we do do child development and teachers training. This comes by way of course, registration, college registration, educational plans to start those BCE training skills and knowledge and addressing, you know, what is going to be needed to be a professional in the classroom, a quality professional in the classroom, and also increasing their parent skills outside in the classroom, and also increasing their parent skills outside of the classroom, which leads to a multi-generational impact. We also provide additional competencies and components such as the Earn and Learn model. Within the Earn and Learn model, apprentices are able to earn as they learn. So they are earning money as they go to as they take classes, as they gain their education. This comes by way of stipends. But then also once they start their on the job training to which they are placed with the mentor teacher who is a qualified teacher in the classroom that shows them what does it look like to be a teacher through observation, through core competencies, through evaluation, and then just shows them you know how to best prepare to interact with parents, difficult children, all of the above. We also have cohort models, student support services for participants as well. And then we have ways that they can get access to any additional information or resources that they may need outside the classroom. We provide support for our apprentices through soft skills training. We also have a workforce advisor that helps them with their condensualling. Someone they can go to when they have questions about what's the next permit they need to obtain and walk them through that process as well as that permit being paid for for the apprentice. The additional opportunities that we have again are the on the job training but once they complete the on the job training successfully, they are able to be evaluated, assess and then recommend it for higher. When they do start that on the job training, they are officially working at the YMCA as a temporary employee. So they're already gaining a wage at 19, 13 an hour, just starting off doing their on the job training. But once they complete, they hop up to the next pay scale, which is $28 an hour, which is a significant jump in wage. So we do support that pay projection for our practices, which is an additional incentive for them to stay in the program and continue into their education, hopefully obtaining their A8 degree and then their B8 degree. And last but not least, we established career pathways. Again, just making sure that they have additional support through their salary. They have support via their center directors to continue to their A8 degree, just making sure that our staff are also aware of the learning that they have going and that they're continuing to go through as teachers. And then we also offer the benefits of being a regular employee at the YMCA. So I'm going to hop back and let Freddie jump in and talk about the program design and what resources we offer in the ECE apprenticeship program and I'll hop back in in a second. Hello, good afternoon everyone. So I am a success coordinator here at the YMCA. So pretty much the design is going to revolve around what we basically do almost every single day. When we go to a recruiting event and stuff like that, we really try to take cater to different audiences, maybe people on CalWORKs, parents, ELF funding who have dual languages. So right now we're doing a Spanish group and Los Madonnaos and we're trying to have CalWORK's people in the group as well. But when we do the cohort learning, we grab individuals from about 20 to 25 spots, maybe 30 at most. And we try to keep that group as centered and as cohorted as possible. We understand that some people may come at different points in education or not any education at all and we try to guide them through the process of that whole thing. Whereas it may be registering from going to get a student ID number, registering for classes, what classes look like, how to log into classes because we understand that. Now, online classes are a big thing after COVID, and we understand that some people might not know how to use a computer as well. So we try to do all those trainings to help the student be successful. On top of that, we try to do, I trainings to help the student be successful. On top of that, we try to do academic counseling with them, set up a plan to see what classes might be useful for their AA degree, bachelor's degree, and further permits. And we really emphasize doing individualized approach with enhanced supports. That's basically my whole job in a nutshell. I want to be your biggest year leader and I want to see you succeed and Having the community partnerships is such a big connection because we go to all over the place I know we go to Sacramento Anyock Pittsburgh Richmond Hayward Oakland you basically name it word there We will find a way to make it there and connect with people. And one of the biggest things that we've done in the past year is go to unincorporated areas of Hayward to start a group for that language in Spanish. We do a lot of strong support relational with educational partners. We hold monthly meetings with educational deans for the early child education and deans with other departments of the specific college that you go to. And really ages nothing but a number. We try to support any ages possible. Basically as soon as they're at a high school, 30 to 40s or maybe in some cases 50 and 60s. Next slide please. So this is sort of the structure that we go with. The first here is within about a year to is the teacher assistant. We offered about 12 units to finish that program, and it's about four classes. We try to do eight week classes. I know it's a little bit faster, but we understand that this first year, you're really learning how to use computer, learning what it is to be an early child education teacher. The first few classes, I know I took it for fun just to see what it was like to be a college student again, was child family community. And that was based off of what experience you had as a child and how that translated to who you are today. The second class that we like to do is child growth and development and that's the whole growth of the child and understanding how that can help you become a better parent or better practices of what you should know. Third one is Infinite Tathers because we deal with a lot of Infinite Tathers at our centers so that could be the whole writing the paperwork, learning what might be seen or stuff. And then the last one is principles and practices. Why it's important to know the lays and the laws of the land or how could it be beneficial to maybe change something. So that's the first year. After that we do the tier two which is the teacher permit So that's the first year. After that, we do the tier two, which is a teacher permit. And that's where you get an extra 12 units of your early child education with your 16 units of general ed to get your teachers permit. When you're done with those, you have an extra 16 units to go to get your A-A degree. Boom, two, three years done. You got that A-A degree. Boom, two, three years done. Got that AA degree. Now let's go for the best. About another two years later depending on where you want to go, where it could be advance or East Bay. That's all up to you, but we want people to finish to the bachelor's program and get that site supervisor level permit or the program director so you can run the center by yourself and be the head haunches of that person. I know we haven't implemented yet, but maybe in the future it'd be great. If we did message program, ultimately we would love to get more education from everyone in the program. Next slide please. So we talked about one of the biggest things in the innovative programs because of COVID. COVID converted a lot of the in-person classes that we used to do at our centers and converted them to online. So because of that, we were able to expand from one or two community colleges to about five. So instead of going from Berkeley City, we went to Los Madonna's Contra Costa and Shabbat. What really helps the parents nowadays is because instead of doing the classes during the day, we found out it might be better to do it at night. So most of our classes are offered in the evenings from about 6'30 to about 8'30, depending on day, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. We don't wanna do Fridays because we understand it's a hard day. We, like we said, depending on how well people are comfortable with the computer, we have to do soft-steel trainings, how to turn on a computer, how to access word, how to access campus. All, as we call, or the young, easy stuff to go into the computer. But we learn that it's really not that easy. A lot of people will have difficulty just getting onto a computer and typing homework for the first time and we try to help those parents or anyone in the program understand how to do that successfully. And then lastly, we try to provide support to participants with mental health and well-being because we understand this program is emotionally draining because you're not just a participant, you're also a person, you have your own life, you have your own family to go to every single night. You have to cook food, not gonna be waiting at home for you, you have to find a way to do it. So we understand that it could be emotionally, but we're here to support you and we're here to listen. And then some of the ongoing challenges, wow, one of the biggest things we found out is when we do life scans, it could take some time to get back to results. So it's not just like, oh yeah, you apply your end, you have to wait a little bit before we find out. We also found out that staff turn out, staff turn out can't happen throughout the system. Sometimes it changes really fast, depending on how hard the early childhood education Program is because we have a high turnover rate But funnily and fun funding model is a big thing for us because Funding can go up go down. It just depends on the year We never know when we have the funding right rightfully available But just having it now has been a successful turnout because we have a lot of people in the program and we can, we wanna continue seeing people go through it. And then lastly, it's verification and documentation with participation hours. So when students or participants finally make it to the on the job training, we do time sheets with them in the classrooms with their mentor teacher and time sheets with them in the classrooms, with their mentor teacher, and then they also clock in and out. But having someone go consistently to about 15-20 sites is a little bit difficult. But we want to, like I said, we want to be successful for everyone. It's just a matter of time and people and resources. Next. I'll pass it over back to my director. Thank you, Freddie. So I'm going to kind of shift over into our program impact. Freddie talked about our support services, kind of the model and how we implement this program. You can shift to the next slide. So just to show you some of our impact by the numbers. And this does specifically focus just on cow works, but as Freddie mentioned, we have a significant amount of apprentices in our program. But as far as cow works, since 2019, there have been about 83 cow works of apprentices, and about 66 apprentices have completed the apprenticeship program. As of 2023, we had about 55 graduates to complete the requirements for the associate teachers permit. So that associate teachers permit allows them to have 12 units and allows them to transition to the classroom. 78% are expected to earn a A degree, and one has already completed their bachelor's degree, which is fantastic. It is really hard to get an apprentice to go all the way through to complete that bachelor's degree, so we're very, very happy with that. Stable jobs have been about 55 apprentices since 2019, where they have been offered an early childhood educator position. I will mention this however that even if they decide not to work with the YMCA after they have obtained those credentials, they are able to work anywhere in the easy field. So it just depends on if they move their location, their family situation, and 100% of apprentices have accepted positions in the ECE program. I also mentioned prior to that they can obtain increased wages in this field. You want to see it has been a lot to push wage increases, I think as of last year, we did an additional boost of the wage per hour, just because we saw that this was one significant factor impacting retention of our teachers in the ECE. So during 2022 through 2023, the average wage was 1913 and it increases to $28 per hour upon completion of those 12 units. So once an educator and apprentice completes those 12 units and they're recommended for higher to the YMSA 8, they stay with us, they will immediately start to earn $28. And then last but not least, again, the blended funding. There is a cost that comes for the apprentice program. It's at no cost to the apprentices, however, as it relates to funding to fund a cohort of about 20 apprentices is approximately about $300,000, which is about $15,000 per apprentice. This includes all of their resources from mental health consultants to tutors, to laptops, books, notebooks, binders, anything that they may need to be successful in the classroom. In addition to stipends that help them kind of have a little additional funds while they are taking those first six first two courses. So those first six units, some of them may or may not be working during that time because they are in school. But we want to make sure that we can provide some type of incentive for them to stick with it. So with every core course, which is four core courses in the tier one that they complete, they will earn $500 stipend. Again, this all depends on funding. We've been able to support this for the past couple of years. And we find that this does help our apprentices stick with the program. So we do have a four kind of four-folded value proposition, one being just the successful works or strategy of the cow works participants. We do do a lot of recruitment within the cow works population and the cow works community as well as making sure they get verified and they're identified in order for them to just come on board and to stick it out with us. The recruitment and the training and credentialing for our apprentices as they are in the program having a workforce advisor be readily accessible to them with any of their questions and work with the permitting office on an ongoing basis to make sure that their permits are maintained if they're about to expire, making sure that they're updated on these things on an ongoing basis. Number three is increased the knowledge of the child development for parents, particularly those parents that are parents from children's 0 to 5 that are a part of that tipping point community just making sure they have the resources outside of the classroom as well and they're taking those lessons learned in the classroom and taking that home in order to just be a better parent in their home and just a better parent in the community and then public funding. So we're moving barriers to access to higher education. So addition to what Freddie mentioned, we work very, very, very closely with our college partners. We have monthly meetings with all of our college partners. We talk about course sequence. We talk about what are the needs in the center as far as do we need to move up the infant toddler, you know, course to, you know, the fall. So that way we can make sure our students are ready to enter infant toddler classrooms. We work with our colleges to just provide additional resources that they may have on site. A lot of the college campuses actually offer health screenings, which takes a burden off of the apprentices when they do have to go through the application process and have that health screening if they can't get an appointment with their doctor. They can go to that home school and say, I'm a student here. I need a health screening done. So we try to do this, like I said, intricate working relationship with our partners, this close working relationship with our partners to make sure our apprentices truly get what they need. In addition to that, we work close with the faculty just in case the student is having an issue in the classroom or if they're not attaining classes, making sure we kind of be the stopgap before a student goes on probation or they're having an issue, you know, getting the resources that they need to succeed in that educational environment. So the future of early childhood apprentice program, we can go to the next slide. So this evaluation has started already with the Center for Study of Child Care Employment. The first phase was made to December of 2023. This was just the collection of a lot of data information about the program. I know the literature review from at least the last I saw was in the draft phase. The admin data is still kind of ongoingly being collected. Key informants were interviewed, findings is kind of ongoing. And then the survey was pushed out to our apprentices in those key informants of the apprentice program. Again, more longitudinal studies still happening for phase two and three. January 23rd is in May of 2025, so we are coming close to that end point, which will have focus groups. An additional survey will go out to the participants. And then ultimately, there'll be a final report. This will be a very robust report about the apprentice program and the impact it has had on the community. The impact has had on the colleges and college retention. And then the impact has had on our apprentices as parents and the parents of the apprentice program. And then I'm going to hop it back over to Freddie to talk about some program voices and some testimonials and the impact of our participants in the program. Let's meet Yisanya Stubbs. Yisanya is a passionate about working with children and wants to instill values and see the development of a new generation. So before joining the program, she worked as a produce clerk, but her career dream was to be a preschool teacher. Now she is an associate teacher at one of our centers and she will be getting her teachers permit within the next year, year and a half. She is committed to, committed, or she is committed to advocating for children becoming the best teachers she can be. And then my favorite, I love Erica Davis with a passion. She is the joy of seeing the parentheses grow. So Erica is a head start parent. She's a single mom too, and is a cower recipient. She graduated from a parent program, while at a homeless shelter. She tried to go back to school in the past, but was unsuccessful due to lack of support, or her 13-year-old daughter with special needs. She joined the program in 2020. It became a teacher-assistant. Now, it's changed a little bit since then, but she was an inclusion assistant. Then she got her teachers' permit. In May, she got her AA degree. Now she has since moved over to become a success coordinator like me. And now she gets the spread, her experiences to the new group of participants in the program. And she's loving everything she does. And every day she comes to the office, I can't you not, I don't know how this woman smiles have today. And every day she comes to the office, I can't you not, I don't know how this woman smiles, I have to day. I know she's going through some hard times, but she is fantastic. And whenever I have bad days, I just think of her because she is a tough lady. And we absolutely love her here at the YMCA. Thank you for listening to the program. And we'll take any questions. Thank you very much for that presentation, especially putting some of the faces to the successes of the program. They're quite inspirational. The E-CAP program is really critical to the work that we're doing with first five, for example, that the late supervisor, Wilma Chan, had started with early childhood education and universal peace school. So I just wanted to understand when we talked about the leveraging funding across systems. So the tier one was that the $300,000 cost with the 20 recipients. And of that, what's the proportion between the county's CalWORKS allocation, the first five, Prop 10, and the tipping point community? So it, again, it's blended. Are you looking? I'm not sure if you're looking for exact numbers. As far as Senna just, it's an equally distributed. I would say, I'm only gonna be able to speak to the tipping point in the first five. I'm not sure about the, let me just take a quick look. She's not sure about Alameda County Social Services. Yeah, I'm not too sure. Thank you. I don't think it's equally split. First five will fund parents that have children zero to five and the entire class may or may not include those, but we still contribute the same amount every year. Yeah. Of course, that program. Yeah, I know cow works, the support cow works participants tipping point zero to five range of parents. Yeah, the reason I'm asking is, as you know, because you serve on the first five board that are commissioned that we're transitioning from the Prop 10 funding to the Measure C funding. So is there sustained allocations that are expected from first five? As of today there are sustained allocations. I think even at first five it did not have the appropriate funds to do so we'll still find a way to keep this program going because it has been a success for our CalWORKS clients. Okay and I'll add that to that we do we do have ELL or English language learners as well and for us who are in workforce development or in ECU apprenticeship programs when you get an apprentice who really wants to succeed we find a way to make it work. So if there is any reason why an apprentice would need additional funding or need to get funded from a different source, we do have other allocations that we could identify that participant with, especially our ELL, English language learners. We also have adults with disabilities cohort as well. So we try to find any way to make it work. So that way these educators can stay in the program and have the support that they deserve and that they need. Okay, I know there's a will, there's a way, right? So when we look at the program, how long does it take, for example, to get from your first step, which was you got to put this into the apprenticeship program, to actually getting the credentialing? For tier one alone, or for the, you just talk about the all three programs. Just the tier one. Just the tier one alone or for the you just talk about the all three programs just to tier one. It should take an apprentice a year because they're eight week courses. So we try to do two courses within 16 weeks. However, sometimes working with colleges it all depends on the faculty availability. So there happen situations where we've had to do a 16 week course because that's the course that's available on that course sequence but Typically, it will take about a year. They'll have their on the job training in unit 9 When they enter into unit 9 it takes about 50 days at 150 hours minimum three days a week For them to complete the on the job training. So ideally, a year, then again, we do see people who may need to take a break or may not have support in their household in order for them to go to school. Yeah, a year would be on average. When we talked about the retention, the 66% retention, that's pretty good of the cohort that you had. What are some of the challenges or problems with what people not completing the program? Absolutely. I would say one of our biggest challenges are our personal reasons. Like we've had situations where people are in DVs, situations, or we've had situations where people just, maybe they just stop out because they're not mentally ready. Like they're just not there. However, we do see it. we do see those who say that they're not ready at that point do come back and communicate as maybe to us maybe a year later and say, okay, I'm ready to go now. But a lot of it is more personal issues. We switched over to the online learning so that way you can cut down the issue of transportation to the college. Now they have it readily accessible to them. The other thing that we did just to kind of make some more changes for our cohorts was doing translations into different languages because we saw that that was also a barrier to some of our participants and just understanding the content that they were receiving in the classroom. So that would be the those are some of the biggest reasons sometimes it's even like homelessness. Or there's just dealing with a lot of personal issues that kind of stop them from pursuing an education at that time. Okay, because... Supervisor Tamal, at also, over the years we've increased the stipend to the participants, because that was also another barrier. Absolutely. So we've increased by I think $500,000. Yeah, so every core course now it's 500. Yeah. Okay. So they can earn up to $2,000 for completing four courses. Oh, then that within that first year. In addition to that when they start their on the job training, they're officially a temporary employee. So if they complete that class, they're getting that $500 plus the wage that they're earning. Okay. The reason I was asking is I had attended the graduation for the first pilot of the certified nursing assistance DNA program at San Leandro adult school and I noticed that the students were also getting living stipends more than just because this is also a high-need area and there was additional funding sources. Yes, but if someone was home, they had some sort of stipend for shelter. Yes, and you mentioned that we've actually talked about this on the sponsorship level. We have our larger conferences, because this ECA print is program is really blossoming across the state of California. Some programs are working with housing departments in order to provide that living stipend. So it is something that we've thought about, but we're constantly evolving at the YMCA, just putting in different, even as of this year, starting conversations about financial wellness, and what it means to live off of the wage that you have and savings and things like that. So that isn't our scope. If that was something that we can do, I'm sure that that would provide a lot of assistance. We have a good amount of apprentices who come into our program from homelessness. Erica being one of our highlights because now she's a success coordinator with us and she's a full-time staff member with us and she's come a long way. But we do have quite a few who struggle with homelessness. Okay. On the innovations and challenges slide, can you help me understand more about like the delays like for example in background checks because well with any job there's also a background check with usually life scan or something like that. Is that the same program or does it take longer to do this background check, which early childhood care? We do use life scans. Sometimes it just takes longer for, I mean, that's just not just our apprentices. That's a cost of work for our early childhood impact programs. We've just seen delays in the guardian system and getting the background checks pushed over. In addition to that, I would say the health screens as well, which is why we're starting to work more closely with the community colleges to make sure that our students know our participants know that they have access to a health facilities through their college campus once they're registered bears as a student. But I think just the system of Guardian and getting that BCI check back into us takes sometimes takes a while. I mean, we've seen it goes as quick as a week to take up to a month and a half just to get something back. So just it just depends on I don't know what it depends on the background of Guardian, but we do have access to check it on an ongoing basis just to make sure that as soon as we get it, we can kind of push into the next step. So a week to a few months, it's not like the probation department can take a whole year sometimes. Oh no, no, no, no, not that long. But when that happens though, if we're coming up a deadline of a class starting a registration, it can delay their process of getting enrolled in that particular course, which can throw them off sequence. Are there things that you think the board can do to help you overcome some of these challenges that you're seeing? I would honestly say that over this past year, I've been with the Apprentices Program for about a year, not even a year and a half yet, and this partnership has been fantastic working with Angelo working with Fan. They've been so supportive in providing us resources with agents within the Cal Works Department, first five department to just help us out, even working with tipping point, then providing us additional trainees. We're actually having a training for all of our participants on trauma informed care coming up at the end of the month during our wellness day. So it's been extremely successful. I'm working now towards getting a mental health consultant in place full time, or as a consultant full time, working to make sure they have the financial wellness accessible to them. And just really using the resources that you have poured into this program to benefit apprentices. And they're very appreciative. If any of you get the chance to attend one of our graduations, it is the most blissful experience to see, you know, the apprentices and their families come together and celebrate some who have never attended a graduation before. So I would definitely say, if anything comes up, we will definitely let the partners know that you all know, but right now I think it's been extremely successful. We're already seeing the impact of our apprentices transition to the classroom. And then they want to be mentor teachers, which is a role that they can take on. We're getting all of our mentor teachers certified to the California mentor teacher program, which allows them to be certified across the state to be mentor teachers. Most of them are previous apprentices. So it's been a really wonderful experience. Thank you. It must be very gratifying to see them. Appreciate the presentation. Thank you so much. And thank you all. How are wonderful today? Thank you. Staying on course with our apprentice programs in the Social Services Agency, I'll now have Ebony Hansi, approach the podium, and she will give an overview of the CalWord Stop Training and Placement Services, our Medical Assistance Certification Program. Another area where there's a shortage. Good afternoon, Supervisor Tam. I am here with a agency director, Andrea Fort. My name is Ebony Hansi. I am an administrative specialist too, with the Alameda County Social Services Agency in the Department of Workforce and Benefits Administration, also known as a WBA. Thank you for having me here today to discuss our CalWorks, Job, Training and Placement Service Medical Assistance certification program. It's a mouthful. As I move forward with the pre this presentation I will address the program as the MA program going forward. Before I go into the overview of the program I would like to present some background information about the medical field. The medical field continues to be an in-demand sector or a career choice that provides a livable wage in the Bay Area and job security. With the expansion of healthcare programs and clinics, more medical assistants are needed to perform clinical duties. According to the California Department, Development Department, they projected 25.6% growth in medical assistant jobs in the next seven and a half years. Due to the higher demands of aging and diverse population, entering the medical field as a medical assistant can also provide a stepping stone to individuals that would like to pursue a nursing career. Becoming a medical assistant takes less than any other healthcare position in which an individual can become a medical assistant within six months to a year. Alameda County Social Services Agency, ACSSA, saw this as a great opportunity to address the growing needs of medical professionals by starting a medical assistant training program in 2018 by offering an MA program to our CalWORK participants. ACSS, ACSSA, started this medical program to target this key sector in the economy by offering classroom-based training, paid externships, and assistance with job placements after completing the program. ACSSA has partnered with the Spanish Speaking Unity Council and Subcontractor Bay Area Medical Academy. Alameda County is the funding agency that works closely with the Spanish Speaking Unity Council that provides the brick and mortar for the clinical-based training. The Spanish-speaking Unity Council has subcontracted with Bay Area Medical Academy to instruct the participants through seven modules that prepare them for the National Center for Competency testing also known as the NCCT exam and phillatami certification. The program components start with a recruitment selection process. Alameda County Employment Counselors recommend clients that are interested in becoming a medical assistant to the program. I would like to clarify at this time that on this slide, the loop point two, There's a typo listed. We listed the slide states the NCC national exam. However, it should state in CCT for the National Center for Competency Testing on ballot number two. The Interest at Clients must attend a mandatory orientation that is presented by the Spanish Speaking Unity Council that gives them a wealth of information about the program and the expectations of the participants. They discuss the modules, externship, background check, drugs, screens, job placement, and case management support they will receive through Alameda County while attending the program. In order for a client to be eligible for the program, they must have 12 months remaining on their cow works, welfare to work, 60-month time on eight o'clock. This will allow them a significant amount of time to get through the classroom modules, 40 hours of philbotomy, non-paid hands-on externship, and the 200 hours paid hands-on medical assistant externship at an actual clinic or hospital located in Alameda County. The Cliamis also have a high school diploma or GED, the authorized to work in the United States, have permanent immunizations to work in a medical environment or the willingness to do so. Must be able to read, write, and speak English and be able to pass a drug and criminal background check. Cal works, well-fritter work participants, must attend a mandatory orientation with the Spanish-speaking Unity Council. In the orientation, the Spanish-speaking Unity Council will go into details about the expectation of the participants that are accepted into the program. The clients that would like to pursue the program will interview with the panel represented by ACSSA myself, Spanish-speaking Unity Council and Bay Area Medical Academy. Right after the interview, the interestedants, excuse me, pardon me. Perseid the program, we'll interview with the panel represented by ACSSA, Spanish Speaking Unity Council and Bay Area Medical Academy. Right after the interview, the Interested Participants will take the comprehensive adult student assessment assistant system's exam, assistant systems exam also known as CASAS. The exam assesses their, assess their reading, math, English, language, writing, and work readiness skills. This assessment allows the collaborative panel to decide if this person will be a get fit for the program. It helps the panel see what level the client is at and see if they can successfully get through the program. Once the participant is assessed and considered to be a great candidate for the program, they were undergo a drug screen and criminal background check. The drug and background screen must come back substance-free and zero felonies. Once accepted into the program participants will attend class Monday. Yes, participants will attend class Monday through Friday. The class is divided into seven modules of four week increments in which all modules must be completed to graduate. For example, Module 1 is clinical assisting their study in the nervous and sensory systems. Module 3 is professionalism, which they consist of legal and medical ethics. Module 6, for example, is medical insurance, which covers bookkeeping, medical office management and employment. After completing all seven modules and their externship, they are officially a certified medical assistant. In addition, these modules are designed to prepare the participants for the National Center for a competency testing exam, which will make them more marketable as they enter the job market. Since we added plovatomy to the program in cohort four, it added an additional module, which is now why seven modules used to be six, but now we're at seven in order for the participants to sit for the written. Okay, yes. In order for the participants to sit for the written Plubotomy exam, the student must complete 25 document draws within class and 50 draws documented on their non-paid externship. Now that we have gone through the overview of the program, I would like to take this time to discuss the demographics of the participants by age, gender, ethnicity, and location. Since 2018, 9% of our participants identify as male, 91% identify as female. The majority of the participants that have entered the program have been women age 30 to 39, which is 47%. This is also the same age group for the majority of the men, which is 6% that entered the program, also aged 30 to 39. Next slide. As we look at the ethnicity of the participants in the program to the left, more than half the participants that have entered the program identifies as black at 51%. The next highest ethnicity population is 21%, which is unknown. Unfortunately, we didn't have the information on that provided to us, so that they were the next 21% there. Moving over to the right of the slide you can see more than half the participants live in the city of Oakland 61% and the next highest population being 10% and hay work. We have also included in this included in this presentation this zip code map. To take a deeper dive of the actual areas in Alameda County listed by zip code on the left. As mentioned on the previous slide 61% of the participants live in Oakland. And looking at this map, the areas that are shaded darker shows where the vast number of participants live. The lighter color represents less people from that area. For example, 11 individuals live in 946-05, so that's the darker brown area on the map there. One person lives in 945-51, which is the Livermore area, and that area comes out a lot lighter on the map. Just the map gives an example of where they are. This now brings us to the program impact where I would like to go into specific details on the slide above. We have actual graduates from cohort for 2022. Oh, wrong slide. That one. Thank you. On the picture from, or for from 2022 and cohort by 2023. The picture on the left is a student from cohort 5 that based a lot of challenges and barriers throughout the program. She had issues with child care and housing. However, with the help of her ACSSA, Employment Counselor and Coaching from the Unity Council. She persevered through the program and finished successfully. The middle picture shows a few of the graduates that finished in cohort 5 as well. The smiles and tears tell you a lot from what they were just thinking going through this picture. The picture doesn't show you everything that I was able to experience that day. Behind them stood Proud Family Members and their kids, very proud of their parents' beaming. As they watched their family members complete the medical assistant program and received their $2,000 completion stipend. The picture to the right is a graduate from cohort 4. She was chosen as class valedictorian as she excelled through the program at the top of the class. I have to say this was a very proud moment to witness. Due to the fact when she interviewed she didn't come off as job ready at that time so we were struggling bringing her into the program but we went ahead and brought her in the program anyway and she excelled. She definitely proved as wrong. She went through the program, this cattle pillar morphed into week by week, a butterfly, and she was even hired at Kaiser from her externship, Kaiser Permanente from her externship. Since the start of the pilot in 2018 through April 2024, we have had 88 participants in the program in which 77% completed the classroom lecture and 200 paid externship hours making them certified medical assistants. 12 of the 68 graduates, 14%, also passed the National NCCCT exam upon graduating from the program. Graduates can get hired without the certification, however, it does make the more marketable as you go out into the job market. To enhance this program and make the participants even more marketable, we add it plebotomy certification to the program, which allows the participants to apply for medical assisted and phlebotomy jobs. Since added in cohort four we have had 70% of the participants actually pass the phlebotomy exam. 29% of the participants have secured medical system positions throughout the San Francisco Bay area, 1% secured a position outside of the medical field but absolutely loved their job and counseling. In completing this program, the graduates exit the program, certified, and have assistance in working with the Spanish speaking unity council as an alumni, in helping them with resume writing, job referrals, and mock interviews. The average certified medical assistance salary is 2586 per hour in the San Francisco Bay area. Currently we have nine participants enrolled in this program with an expected graduation date of January 31st 2025. We are also in the process of doing a request for proposal for a new contract period for additional three years. This brings me to the end of my presentation and I would like to thank you supervisor Tam, A to C4, for allowing me to share the MA program information with you today. I thank you for your time and open a floor up to any questions at this time. Thank you for that presentation. It's the cost of the program. You entirely funded by WBA. Yes, okay. And how much is it? It changed year over year. It just actually went up here. Let me just was it seven eighty? I think it was like 75,000. Yes. Is it about 10 participants per cohort? Well, we have to pay for a minimum of 25 participants. Regardless if we get that many in the program and that, we have to pay for a minimum of 25. We try to aim for 30. Okay. The so most of the certification seems to be in full thought of me and do a lot of the participants like come back to some of the local federally qualified health clinics like La Clinica or Native American Health Center or Asian Health or Davis Street or a lifelong or roots to To use her skills. Yes, they do a lot of the externships of the ones that you just mentioned They do do externships at those locations like groups La Clinica is one of them as well when they do their externships that those locations like groups. LeClinica is one of them as well when they do their externships. And of the participants of the cohort, what portion of them have bilingual skills? I don't know that off-hand. Sorry, my apologies. My name is Jeanette Perez. I'm a supervising program specialist in WBA. That is an excellent question. I believe so far all the participants that have been in the program are primarily English speakers. And one way that we are tracking that information is through our call of forna statewide automated welfare system. So that is a question I think that we can ask moving forward, is if participants do have language skills other than English? Yeah, I think that would be helpful given the clinics that are, that get significant funding from the county, for example. I think a lot of them serve some of the immigrant communities or first generation immigrant communities. So knowing that information would be helpful. And I think that's also an important factor to include in the next RFP cycle. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thanks so much for your time. I'm sorry. Thank you so much for your time. Of course. Thank you again. So do we have any public comment on either item one or two? I have no speakers for items one and two. Thank you. Do we have any speakers for public comment on items that are not on today's agenda? I have no speakers for public comment. Thank you and today's meeting is adjourned. Thank you.