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The City of Los Angeles Workforce Development Board annually manages more than $50 million in public funds aimed at building the LA economy and improving the quality of life for every community member

Los Angeles Basin Region Submits Regional and Local Plan Modifications; Wins Prison to Employment (P2E) Grant

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The seven Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) of Los Angeles County submitted their Regional and Local plan modifications and were awarded $8,709,066 on March 25, 2019 in Prison to Employment (P2E) Initiative funding! This represents a win for the re-entry and justice-involved individuals in Los Angeles County who make up a third of the State’s supervised population. Although there are currently some, informal re-entry services being provided by Community Based Organizations (CBO’s), the P2E Initiative facilitates a formalized re-entry services system between the following stakeholders:

  • Los Angeles WDB’s
  • WorkSource Centers
  • America’s Job Centers of California (AJCC’s)
  • The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR)
  • CDCR Contracted Re-entry Service Providers and CBO’s
  • Parole and Probation Representatives

Los Angeles County is California’s most populous county and has historically been the biggest contributor to the California prison system. In light of recent changes to the management of low level, non-violent offenders in California, there is an immediate need to provide those returning to their communities with centralized resources to succeed in their education and employment goals.

The Los Angeles WDB’s held sixteen public forums in autumn 2018 to critically engage re-entry stakeholders on the size and need of the re-entry population. Thus, the allocation of grant money to LA County from the P2E Initiative is not only the result of hard work from various stakeholders, but also a crucial step in the right direction to help one of the most vulnerable and underserved communities in LA County begin their re-integration into society.

BACKGROUND

The LA Basin Regional Planning Unit is comprised of seven local Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) which include the following: The Regional Workforce Plan outlines the objectives for the next four years and is required under federal and state laws and is subject to the Governor’s approval. It is specifically required to determine how the seven Workforce Boards plan to:
  • Align, coordinate, and integrate reentry and workforce services to the formerly incarcerated and other justice-involved individuals;
  • Comply with State Plan guidance and state law relating to Multi-Craft Core Curriculum (MC3) pre-apprenticeship partnerships;
  • Conduct a regional self-assessment using Indicators of Regional Coordination and Alignment to determine regional implementation progress in achieving the objectives of the California State Workforce Development Plan.

The Local Plan Modifications are specifically required to determine how each Local Workforce Development Board plans to modify the Local Plan to:
  • Comply with regional or local partnerships with county human service CalFresh programs
  • Comply with regional or local partnerships with Local Child Support Agencies (LCSAs) to provide workforce services to unemployed, underemployed, and payment-delinquent noncustodial parents
  • Comply with regional or local partnerships with programs that serve individuals with disabilities, including detail on strategies to implement Competitive Integrated Employment
  • Comply with services for English Language Learners, the Foreign Born, and Refugees

The Corrections Workforce Partnership & Prison to Employment (P2E) Initiative is intended to strengthen linkages between the state workforce and corrections systems in order to improve the process by which the formerly incarcerated and justice-involved individuals reenter society and the labor force. California releases approximately 36,000 people from the state prison each year. Consequently, the P2E initiative serves as a blueprint for building local and regional partnerships to improve labor market outcomes and reduce recidivism.