Instructor Susan Kilby (right) shows students Maggie Fernandez (seated) and Shirley Walker how to work safely with elderly patients as part of a caregiver program offered at GateWay Community College in Phoenix.

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Civic Ventures and MetLife Foundation have awarded $25,000 grants to community colleges in eight states that are creating programs to retrain experienced adults as solar panel installers, bilingual community health workers, math and science teachers and other positions identified as local workforce needs.

The Community College Encore Career Initiative supports community colleges that are helping individuals over age 50 prepare for encore careers that combine continued income with personal meaning and social impact.

>>See a map of encore colleges offering programs for older students.

>>Read about the 10 Encore community colleges selected in 2007.

The 2009 grants are being awarded to community colleges in Arizona, California, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington that are piloting or expanding courses to retrain boomers for jobs in education, health care, social service and, for the first time this year, the green economy.

In 2007 Civic Ventures and MetLife Foundation awarded grants to 10 community colleges to match boomers' experience, skills and interests to careers in critical fields facing labor shortages. To learn more about this program, read “Pathways to Encore Careers: How 10 Community Colleges Are Preparing Boomers to Work in Education, Health Care and Social Services.”

The 2008 Encore Career Survey by Civic Ventures and MetLife Foundation found that half of those surveyed between the ages of 44 and 70 were interested in pursuing an encore career.

Encore career programs developed by the 2009 community college awardees will be offered during 2009-10. They are:

• Community College of Allegheny County (Pittsburgh, Penn.) – CCAC will train dislocated professionals as certified medical office managers, an occupation expected to grow nationally by 16 percent through 2016. Students will move into the growing regional health care field working in physicians’ offices, medical clinics, medical practices and hospital health care facilities.
• Community Colleges of Spokane (Spokane, Wash.) – This college will develop a program to help older adults make smooth transitions to green jobs through a course that helps participants explore the nature of green jobs, learn how to become employed or enroll in additional certification training.
• Grand Rapids Community College (Grand Rapids, Mich.) – This college will build on past success to expand local employer connections through a new employer training program and will launch a course that increases the employability of students for encore careers in health care.
• LaGuardia Community College (New York, N.Y.) – Older immigrants who have worked professionally in the social services and health care fields in their native countries will be recruited for training leading to employment as community health workers, providing people in underserved New York City communities with needed health information and services from experienced, bilingual workers.
• Ohlone College (Newark, Calif.) – Seasoned electricians, general contractors and tradespeople will receive training as mentors and team leaders for economically disadvantaged youths entering the green collar workforce. Some “Green Encore Fellows” will receive intensive solar energy training to design and install green energy systems and be placed with employers who have an urgent need for skilled supervisors and trainers.
• Rio Salado College (Tempe, Ariz.) – This college will increase the number of adults over age 50 enrolled in teacher certification programs through marketing and recruitment efforts with AARP and local partners.
• Southeastern Community College (Whiteville, N.C.) – The college’s Green Pathways Project will reach out to older low-income and dislocated workers whose traditional income sources have disappeared and provide them the skills necessary to apply for emerging green encore careers linked to the county’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funds.
• Union County College (Cranford, N.J.) – Support systems are now strained for hard-to-employ individuals including an increasing pool of ex-offenders in need of jobs. Union County’s Workforce Specialist Academy will prepare older professionals and volunteers as adult educators to fill the gaps in adult basic education, workforce development and prisoner re-entry services.

“Even in good economic times, it’s not easy to get from the end of a midlife career to the beginning of an encore career,” said Marc Freedman, CEO and founder of Civic Ventures and author of Encore: Finding Work that Matters in the Second Half of Life. “In these tough times, community colleges are stepping up to provide a vital bridge to older job seekers who want work that means something to them — and matters to the world.”

“By investing in our nation’s community colleges, we are opening more doors to older Americans in need of affordable and flexible retraining,” said Dennis White, president and CEO of MetLife Foundation. “This initiative supports colleges on the forefront of tapping the talent of older adults to meet community needs and also provides a road map for other colleges to follow.”

After a year of implementing their initiatives, the colleges will collaborate with Civic Ventures to report on lessons learned from their programs and to make recommendations on how best to provide courses that work for boomers interested in encore careers.