Workforce Ready Grant Impact Stories
Oregon Workforce Partnership and Golden Rule ReEntry
This issue features two organizations that are advancing services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals with support from Future Ready Oregon Workforce Ready Grants. Oregon Workforce Partnership, the association of Oregon’s nine local workforce development boards, and Golden Rule ReEntry, a community-based organization in Medford, each received a 2022 “Capacity Building” grant and a 2023 “Innovation in Workforce Programs” grant. Keep reading to learn more about their grant-funded projects, community partnerships, and promising practices for connecting Oregonians affected by the criminal justice system with wraparound supports and services, workforce education and training opportunities, and employment.
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Expanding the WorkSource Oregon Reentry Program
How Oregon’s Nine Local Workforce Development Boards Are Partnering with State Agencies to Connect Adults in Custody with Jobs
Central Oregon Launch
In 2019, East Cascades Works (ECW), the local workforce development board serving the ten Oregon Counties east of the Cascades Mountain range, introduced a plan to prepare adults in custody (AICs) in the board’s service region to rejoin the workforce upon release. Over the next three years, ECW partnered with the Oregon Employment Department (OED) and the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC) to develop and implement the WorkSource Oregon Reentry Program. Launching the program required all three organizations to work together closely to identify and address the safety needs, outfit spaces with secure technology, and ensure adequate IT and WorkSource staffing.
With centers across the state, WorkSource Oregon (WSO) connects jobseekers with employers. However, prior to the launch of the Reentry Program, no such WSO centers existed in Oregon’s correctional facilities, which meant AICs had no access to WSO services. ECW launched the Reentry Program in order to address this gap in service, establishing WSO centers in the two correctional facilities in its region: Deer Ridge and Warner Creek Correctional Facilities. Beginning in 2022, these centers provide AICs with access to services that include career coaching, apprenticeship programs, and opportunities to apply and interview for jobs—leading, in some cases, to securing employment prior to release.
The objective: give AICs the workforce education, transferrable skills, and a network of support they need to successfully reenter the workforce and society. “There is data that shows that one of the factors that will significantly reduce recidivism is ‘rapid attachment’ to meaningful employment,” explained ECW Director Heather Ficht. Rapid attachment to employment can in turn help address a variety of challenges faced by returning citizens, their families and communities, and the workforce system. “We can address the housing issue that way,” she continued. “We can address the workforce crisis that way. And we can reduce the cost of incarceration in this state and reduce recidivism and really maximize peoples’ incomes. It’s a win, win, win.”
Creating a Statewide Network
ECW identified early on in the process of implementing the Reentry Program that AICs are rarely housed in a correctional facility that is located in the same community in which they will be released. In order to maintain the quality and continuity of WorkSource services, the Reentry Program needed to expand from Deer Ridge and Warner Creek to the state’s other ten correctional facilities. DOC Reentry & Release Administrator Amy Bertrand explained, “the ultimate goal is creating a system where no matter what institution people are in…they are getting the same service.” A “warm handoff and soft landing to the supportive networks in their community,” Bertrand noted, is also important.
Consequently, ECW and DOC advocated for a statewide Reentry Program system with WSO centers opening in each correctional facility and where WorkSource case managers serve as consistent points of contact for AICs no matter their location, both before and after they are released.
Such an expansion would not be possible without a statewide network of partners collaborating to address the complex logistics and secure funding for staffing and computer equipment. That’s where Oregon Workforce Partnership (OWP), the association of the state’s nine local workforce development boards, came in. With unanimous support from the boards as well as DOC leadership for all 12 facilities, OWP successfully applied for two Future Ready Oregon Workforce Ready Grants from the Oregon Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) to take the Reentry Program statewide, standing up service centers in the ten remaining correctional facilities in Oregon.
A 2022 Workforce Ready “Capacity Building” grant for $100,000 enabled OWP to develop the expansion plan in partnership with DOC. The consensus of all nine local workforce development boards has been crucial to this plan because each new WSO center will be administered by that region’s board. In regions where there are no correctional facilities, boards will help ensure that returning citizens stay connected with their case manager and have access to local wraparound supports and services following their release.
That’s not all the Workforce Ready Grants helped OWP to accomplish. “Oregon has set itself apart through this statewide project,” OWP Executive Director Georgia Conrad remarked. She credited receiving the Workforce Ready Grants and the “unanimous consensus” of the boards with enabling OWP to land a $3.8 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration’s Pathway Home initiative. This federal grant will further cover the costs of implementing secure technology and hiring new case managers.
A $1 million “Innovation in Workforce Programs” Workforce Ready Grant awarded in 2023 enabled OWP and the boards to begin implementing the expansion plan, and helped to cover OWP’s costs associated with staffing, additional training, and delivery of expungement services.
Now, by building on the initial regional model, blending and braiding state and federal funding, and continuing to collaborate with each other and with the DOC and OED, the local workforce development boards are positioned to begin opening the new correctional facility WSO centers this year, creating a network of supports and services for returning citizens, their communities, and their employers.
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Golden Rule ReEntry
Southern Oregon Community-based Organization Connects Returning Citizens with Housing and Jobs
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 Pictured: Prison to Prosperity Pipeline program participants, activities, and activity locations. Photos courtesy of Golden Rule ReEntry.
Established in Medford in 2020, Golden Rule ReEntry (GRR) is a community-based organization that uses trauma-informed practices to help formerly incarcerated individuals develop life skills and prepare for employment by providing “kinship, networking, classes, and services with a focus on personal and professional growth.”
In 2023, with the support of a $300,000 Workforce Ready “Capacity Building” grant, GRR opened its downtown Medford Drop-in Center and developed the Prison to Prosperity Pipeline pilot, a holistic life skills and workforce development reentry program. Participants learn professional and social skills; develop financial literacy and tech competency; practice strategies that foster good health, wellness, and nutrition; and prepare for jobs in the manufacturing and healthcare sectors.
In addition to opening the Drop-in Center, where training participants, recent graduates and other formerly incarcerated community members can receive additional case management support, the Workforce Ready Grant funding enabled GRR to hire more staff and expand its network of community partners who help conduct many of the trainings.
For individuals who may have spent decades in a highly structured environment, “seemingly small decisions—what to wear, what to eat, how to use a cellphone, to name a few examples—can be overwhelming,” GRR Founder and Executive Director Abigail Lewis observed. “Our structured, supportive, and timed-release program is designed to gently bring them into the light of their own potential by giving them the best tools to find their way in this modern world with a plan and a future.”
Expanding the Prison to Prosperity Pipeline program also helped GRR identify and address persistent gaps in services. Residential services stood out as one of the most significant, explained Lewis: “There is a massive need for housing in Southern Oregon. With hundreds of people being released from prisons and jails in Southern Oregon each year, this is a population that remains seriously underserved.”
A $500,000 “Innovation in Workforce Programs” Workforce Ready Grant helped GRR secure and outfit a third home for the Golden Rule Residential pilot program. Golden Rule Residential expands the Prison to Prosperity Pipeline program to provide a safe, welcoming, and immersive environment where residents learn practical, hands-on strategies for living independently. The pilot launched this April for six participants, and GRR already has plans to expand the program. Participants will graduate with skills and access to a network of regional partners and services designed to help them successfully pursue employment and live independently.
Related HECC Resources and Activities
Future Ready Oregon Grant-funded Programs and Participants
In addition to Oregon Workforce Partnership and Golden Rule ReEntry, a variety of other workforce service providers and community-based organizations have received Future Ready Oregon grant funding to support education and training opportunities for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals. These organizations include but are not limited to the following:
Future Ready Oregon funded projects and programs prioritize participation by historically underserved and underrepresented Oregonians. Priority Populations specifically include communities of color, women, low-income communities, rural and frontier communities, veterans, persons with disabilities, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, members of Oregon’s tribes, older adults, and individuals who identify as members of the LGBTQ+ community. The HECC Office of Research and Data’s second annual report on Future Ready Oregon indicates that of the 9,441 participants in Future Ready Oregon grant-funded programs, 92% identified with one or more of the Priority Populations, nearly two-thirds identified with at least two priority populations (62%), and 12% identified as incarcerated or formerly incarcerated.
Learn more about Future Ready Oregon grant-funded programs and check out our map of grantees across Oregon.
Other HECC Activity Related to Corrections Education
The Oregon High School Equivalency Program, part of the HECC’s Office of Community Colleges and Workforce Development, works with the Department of Corrections (DOC) on GED® education opportunities for individuals in custody. In addition, the HECC collaborates with the DOC on the Senate Bill 269 Advisory Committee, an advisory body related to the state agreements for corrections education.
 Reminder: Workforce Ready Grant Applications Due by July 31st
The HECC is currently accepting applications for the next round of Future Ready Oregon Workforce Ready Grants. The HECC will award a combined total of approximately $40 million to recruit and retain a diverse workforce in key sectors of Oregon’s economy—healthcare, manufacturing, and technology—through three sector-focused Requests for Applications (RFAs). Workforce service providers and community-based organizations are invited to apply by July 31, 2024.
The available funding includes approximately:
- $18 million for healthcare projects—specifically, $9 million for projects that advance nursing career pathways and $9 million for projects that address community-identified healthcare workforce needs,
- $12 million for manufacturing projects that focus on outreach, awareness, and career exploration, or earn-and-learn education and training opportunities, and
- $10 million for technology projects that focus on upskilling and retraining adult learners, dislocated workers, and individuals employed in high-tech and other industries, or on transferrable technology skills, training, and career awareness.
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