GWTP PROGRAMS
West Town Academy (WTA) has been a part of Greater West Town Community Development Project’s (GWTP) efforts to overcome our community’s dropout crisis for more than 20 years. At WTA, our mission is to build an urban high school education model that demonstrates how at-risk students of color can succeed with the appropriate investments, structure, and community support.
We retrieve, retain, and educate youth that have dropped out of of high school, helping them to become tomorrow’s leaders, today.
Greater West Town and WTA have a long history of leadership and innovation in the fight to reclaim our youth. Providing an opportunity for former high school dropouts to return to school and earn a high school diploma at West Town Academy is Greater West Town’s “cornerstone” strategy for creating greater educational and economic opportunities for at-risk youth living in the communities that we serve. It’s imperative that we have community-based and community-led initiatives to reclaim our out-of-school youth:
The Woodworkers Training Program is a vocational training program that prepares participants for a wide range of skilled occupations in the wood products and solid surface manufacturing industry. Since 1993, the program has graduated 846 trainees. Through GWTP placement services graduates have gone into full time, training-related, non-subsidized employment. Program graduates have gone on to work in a diverse array of different career paths including, but not limited to, cabinetmaking, furniture making, exhibit and display, and mill working.
CREATED AS A COMMUNITY-BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP, THE PROGRAM SIMULTANEOUSLY MEETS THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITY RESIDENTS WHILE DEVELOPING A SKILLED WORKFORCE FOR THE LOCAL WOODWORKING INDUSTRY.
As reported to the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC) for its most recent reporting period from October 2015 through September 2016, the Woodworkers Training Program graduated 21 of the 23 students available for graduation, a graduation rate of 91%. Of the 20 graduates available for employment, 16 were employed in the field, an employment rate of 80%.
The Shipping & Receiving Program began in 1996, and is a 12-week vocational training program that prepares trainees with a broad base of skills needed to be highly-qualified for entry-level employment in positions such as a shipping & receiving clerk, forklift operator, warehouse associate, material handler, traffic agent, stocker, order picker, or dock worker in a variety of different industries that depend on warehousing logistics.
CREATED AS A COMMUNITY-BUSINESS PARTNERSHIP, THE PROGRAM MEETS THE NEEDS OF COMMUNITY RESIDENTS WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY DEVELOPING A SKILLED WORKFORCE FOR THE HIGH-DEMAND WORKFORCE NEEDS OF LOCAL EMPLOYERS.
GWTP's Adult Placement Programs provide a comprehensive array of services to a diverse range of unemployed & underemployed community residents and to local employers. Through GWTP's Job Search Assistance, Direct Placement Services, GWTP provides the skills, support, and employment opportunities critically needed by disadvantaged community residents. Since November 1988, GWTP has established Job Readiness Programs & Employment Services for neighborhood workers at 220 local companies. Thirty-eight hundred low-income community residents and dislocated workers have been trained, given support services, and placed in jobs in the community. GWTP has distributed over $900,000 in Federal grants to local businesses to support the hiring and training of neighborhood workers.