FLINT,
Michigan — Flint colleges are promising to lead the way in retraining
dislocated Michigan workers for new careers and they’re getting more money to do
it.
Baker College of
Flint is the latest local institution to receive training dollars, which will be
used to oversee preparing workers for jobs in the health industry in seven
counties.
Baker’s $113,000
award from the independent non-profit Prima Civitas Foundation comes on the
heels of a $3.6 million federal grant awarded to Mott Community College for
training people in green construction jobs.
“We’ve
experienced significant dislocation — nowhere is that more true that Genesee
County,” said Steven Bennett, project manager of the four-year-old Prima Civitas
Foundation, which focuses on boosting the mid-Michigan
economy.
“But those
effects aren’t limited to any one county. Throughout the region this is an
opportunity, an additional piece of the puzzle to try to get people back to work
in jobs that are sustainable.”
The money will
help former autoworkers and others start new paths to becoming nurses, medical
assistants, radiologists and X-ray technicians among other
careers.
Baker’s Flint
campus will serve as the lead management organization for health training for
workers from Bay, Huron, Lapeer, Midland, Saginaw, Sanilac and Tuscola counties.
The Flint campus will also help place people in jobs.
The award
dovetails with a first phase of funding that poured $1.25 million into Genesee
County in 2008 for healthcare training. That money went to the Greater Flint
Healthcare Coalition but included involvement from both Baker and
MCC.
“Colleges are
front and center of any type of economic revitalization,” Bennett said. “Whether
you’re looking at the healthcare industry or green economy, no matter where you
want to take this new economy people speak of, colleges are key
partners.”
The funding
helps people such as Sheila Straham, of Flint Township, who lost her facilities
job last year after cuts at the General Motors SPO in Pontiac.
Straham, 53, is
back in school at Baker for a big life change — now in the patient technician
care program.
Money from the
first phase of healthcare training funding from Prima Civitas is paying for all
of her tuition, books, even gas and a desktop computer.
“Just running
from one employer to another to try to get applications can be depressing,”
Straham said. “It gives you hope and lets you meet new people and
network.
“It lets you
know you can do more than one thing in your life, that that time is over but you
can try something new.”
The new Baker
grant aims to train 50 workers out of a total 150, with Lansing Community
College training the other participants.
Prima Civitas
received $2 million in 2008 to help train a total of 400 dislocated mid-Michigan
workers for healthcare jobs.
“The main reason
we applied for this grant was to help those outlying counties, “said Janie
Stewart, Baker’s vice president of career and corporate
services.
“Even over the
last couple of years when its seemed like every other area has been down,
healthcare shows some growth but we need skilled individuals.”
