The Culinary Careers Project Team, “The Execs”, worked alongside Billings Forge Community Works, a non-profit organization that provides job training, food access, and sustainable social enterprises to help people change their lives. Billings Forge identified food service as one of few options open to people with barriers to employment such as recent incarceration, homelessness, and poverty. The organization seeks to address social and economic inequality in the city of Hartford in one small but essential way: through career pathways that lead to better jobs. Billings Forge approached our Action Lab team because they were interested in developing mid-level training that advances skills and earnings for the underemployed, unemployed, workers, new and future labor market entrants, and to provide a steady supply of qualified workers for employers.
Our Action Lab team sought to answer the following questions:
Which program models have the best results for participants?
What do participants learn in these programs?
What support do Hartford residents need to advance in the culinary industry?
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