After he studied gerontology at Portland Community College in Oregon, Mark Noonan started a second career helping older people find personal fulfillment.

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Civic Ventures and MetLife have teamed up to award seven new grants to community colleges helping experienced adults get on the fast track to careers in health and education, including becoming teachers, adjunct college instructors, caregivers and clinical nursing instructors. Read the press release.

The grants come on the heels of a new report by Northeastern University labor economist Barry Bluestone which found that, after the recession ends, there will likely be more health and education jobs than people to fill them. And while jobs are tight now, health and education fields continue to have openings. Learn about the research.

The new grantees are:

• The Community College of the District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.), which will offer an eight-week program training older adults as “community living support professionals” who work with adults with physical, developmental or age-related disabilities in a variety of settings. Classroom instruction will be augmented with hands-on learning, networking and an employer job fair.
• Florida State College at Jacksonville, which will adapt existing programs to provide fast-track certification, customized support and job placement assistance suited to the needs of older adults who want to become home-based and community-based health care assistants.
• Middlesex Community College (Bedford, Mass.), which will offer a semester-long certificate program to train people for adjunct teaching jobs in developmental English, math and clinical nursing at Massachusetts community colleges.
• Northampton Community College (Bethlehem, Pa.), which will train older adults to become home health aides, nurse’s aides and home care aides by providing a 100-hour training course designed to help boomers learn more about technology, ergonomic safety and customer service.
• Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City, which will train 40 retiring business professionals as Developmental Studies instructors helping students who are underprepared for college improve their reading, writing or math skills. Instruction for the adult educators will include courses on working with a range of diverse students, learning classroom management skills and using social networking.
• Polk State College (Winter Haven, Fla.), which will help people over 50 with bachelor’s degrees become teachers by adding individual mentoring, computer training, peer support programs and math instruction to an existing K-12 alternative teacher certification program.
• Westchester Community College (Valhalla, N.Y.), which will offer a 60-hour curriculum for primary care nurses who want to become clinical nursing instructors. The pilot "Nursing Encore Career Center" program will train veteran nurses to supervise students in a wide range of health care settings.

Read about all 40 colleges that have received $25,000 grants as part of the Encore College Initiative.

Interested in retraining for an encore career in health and education? Check out our Get Started Guide for tips and resources.