Sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, the FORWARD curriculum is designed to support Cooperative Extension Professionals (CEPs) working to address workforce development issues in rural communities. This project expands upon Cooperative Extension’s experience with youth engagement and career development to target non-traditional student populations such as incumbent, displaced, and low-income workers. This curriculum helps CEPs work with communities to identify and address the career pathway needs of rural workers--particularly low-income rural workers—as well as employers in rural communities.
Program Information
- Introduction: Moving Communities Forward
- Module 1: Developing Key Partnerships
- Module 2: Identifying Workforce Assets & Needs
- Module 3: Mapping Pathways to Economic Mobility
- Module 4: Recruiting & Supporting Rural Learners
- Module 5: Evaluation & Reflection
- Build capacity for Cooperative Extension to serve as workforce development coaches and facilitators in rural communities
- Identify and address the needs of low-income workers and employers in rural communities
- Develop workforce pathways that reduce poverty and alleviate worker shortages
- Leverage the Cooperative Extension network to scale improvements in rural community capacity to address workforce needs
- Toolkit
- Visual identity guide
- Fact sheets
- Evaluation tools
- Surveys
- Misc resources
- N/A
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If you have updates to this page, please contact Jocelin Gibson at jocelin.gibson@usu.edu.