Utah’s Skilled2Succeed Graduates Advance Skills
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OREM, Utah – August 21, 2006
Skilled2Succeed (S2S), helping underserved Utahns achieve employment and self-sufficiency through certification and validation of critical job skills, announced today its graduating class of more than 50 recognized at UVSC National Guard Auditorium Monday evening, August 21, 2006 at seven o’clock.
“Minimum wage jobs do not provide financial security for today's families,” stated State of Utah First Lady Mary Kay Huntsman. “Good paying jobs take skills beyond a high school diploma. Family and individual financial security require employment with a respectable salary. Skilled2Succeed helps to bridge that gap toward job qualifications and financial stability.”
Skilled2Succeed provides the final link in the chain from job retraining to meaningful advancement in the workplace. Certified program graduates have been placed in professional positions at companies like DirectPointe, Coldwell Banker and Novell, among others. The program merges the existing momentum of UVSC’s Turning Point center for personal and career development and WIT in an innovative partnership with DirectPointe, a private sector technology provider; Certiport, world computer certification leader; and Adecco, a leading staffing services provider; Intermountain Health Care health care system; and software provider Novell.
S2S graduate Roxie Fonohema has gone on to teach S2S classes and was recently honored as a Champion of Digital Literacy at Certiport’s PATHWAYS conference in Orlando, Florida. “Until I had these skills I wasn’t employable,” Roxie says. “They gave that to me. I am hooked on learning. Now we need to help other people gain this confidence so they can go out there and conquer.”
More than 14,000* single parent Utah families live in poverty and 26** percent of Utah’s children live in working poor families. Research indicates that two thirds of disadvantaged adults find employment with a significant increase in income after training***.
Skilled2Succeed leverages a successful cost-effective model developed by Certiport over the past three years in similar efforts in several states. With the tremendous certification and job placement success already achieved by Skilled2Succeed participants, founding stakeholders hope to certify and find employment for many of the 1,000 yearly Turning Point participants and other public retraining programs. In turn, it is hoped that additional partners and area employers will become aware of the value of Skilled2Succeed and choose to become involved.
Employers and job retraining programs seeking more information about Skilled2Succeed may send email to Michelle Scott at mscott@certiport.com . For more information on current alliance partners see www.skilled2succeed.org.
Certiport and IC3 are registered trademarks of Certiport, Inc. in the United States and other countries.
*Source: U.S. 2000 Census
**Source: Utah Children
***Source: Center for Public Policy and Administration – University of Utah
Press Contact:
John Pilmer
PilmerPR
801-369-7535
jpilmer@pilmerpr.com |
