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Westchester County Assoc. Managing Healthcare Job Creation In Mount Vernon

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- .The Westchester County Association has been selected by the Westchester-Putnam Workforce Investment Board to serve as project manager of a $9.8 million Federal Ready to Work Partnership grant to provide 425 long-term unemployed individuals with intensive training for jobs in the healthcare sector.

Danielle DeMatteis will spearhead Westchester County Association's project management of the Jobs Waiting Program.

Danielle DeMatteis will spearhead Westchester County Association's project management of the Jobs Waiting Program.

Photo Credit: Contributed

Funds from the grant, which is allocated through the U.S. Department of Labor’s Ready to Work Partnership, will be used for outreach and recruitment to better connect workers with organizations that are looking to hire. They will also be used to provide training and support services to people who are unemployed but require retraining or jobs in high demand in health care and to further develop strategies to increase the number of middle- and high-skilled job placements.

Job seekers will receive training for healthcare jobs in high demand, such as: registered nurses, medical coders, radiologic and MRI technicians, physician’s assistants, and others as required by business and healthcare organizations in the region. In the Hudson Valley, there are an estimated 13,000 long-term unemployed, defined as those who have been unemployed for more than six months and exhausted their unemployment benefits during the past two years.

This regional training program is led by Westchester County and serves to connect workers with open positions in seven counties in the Hudson Valley: Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, Ulster and Sullivan. The Westchester County Association was awarded the role of Project Manager because of its extensive experience managing and executing multi-partner, multi-year projects simultaneously.

“Assuming the project management role of the Jobs Waiting grant is a key component of the WCA’s multi-faceted program to help develop the best possible workplace talent in our region,” says Amy Allen, Vice President and Executive Director, Hudson Valley Workforce Academy, Westchester County Association. “The WCA Hudson Valley Workforce Academy, launched in January, addresses the critical need for skilled workers to help fill the 2,500+ jobs presently open in the healthcare, technology, and business sectors here.”

Danielle DeMatteis, who will spearhead the WCA’s project management of the “Jobs Waiting Program,” said that retraining and support services are crucial in order to hone the skills needed to get people back into the workforce. She said the program will teach soft skills, such as the interpersonal skills needed in the workplace, as well as the hard skills such as technology and direct service delivery. “Our main goal is to determine the needs of the end user, the employer, to identify hard to fill positions, the training that is needed and the skills gaps that exist.”

Among the participating regional One-Stop Career Centers in the program are Westchester One-Stop Career Center in White Plains; Mt. Vernon Career Center in Mt. Vernon; Peekskill Career Center in Peekskill; Yonkers Career Center in Yonkers; Putnam One-Stop Career Center in Carmel; Rockland County Career Center in Spring Valley; and other centers in Newburgh, Middletown, Pougkeepsie, Kingston and Monticello.

For further information, visit www.jobswaiting.com or contact Dani DeMatteis at 914-948-4144 or ddematteis@westchester.org.

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