Greater West Town Community Development Project

 About GWTP
 What's New
 Contacts

Current GWTP Programs

Woodworkers Training Program

After a successful two-year research, planning, and development process involving more than twenty-two area companies, the Woodworkers Training Program began its first class in March 1993. For area residents, this program addresses the urgent need of disadvantaged residents--such as Empowerment Zone residents, ex-offenders, long-term welfare recipients, and women seeking non-traditional careers--for technical skills training leading to careers offering decent wages, stable employment, and growth potential. At the same time, the program addresses the needs of a strategic local industry to develop the skilled and motivated workforce it requires to stay and expand operations in the area, while competing successfully in the global economy. The Woodworkers Training Program is now in its 26th Training Cycle. Of the 386 students that have graduated between April 1996 and January 2003 85% have been placed on jobs. Today, a number of local woodworking firms credit the program for their manufacturing success; others cite the program as an important factor in the decisions to remain and expand operations in the area. Woodworkers Training has been widely recognized-by state and local government, and by national public policy research organizations-as a model community-business partnership. In May of 2000 a major program expansion was begun with the addition of advanced panel processing equipment and the establishment of an advanced level course in woodworking training.

Shipping and Receiving Training Program

In February of 1996, GWTP successfully replicated the pioneering community-business partnership model established by its Woodworkers Training Program with the beginning of its Shipping and Receiving Training Program. The Shipping and Receiving Training Program implements the linkage between the workforce needs of local business and the employment needs of area residents in a broad new way. The program opens a wide range of entry-level career starting points in transportation and logistics-related careers for disadvantaged area residents while producing workers with skills in demand by virtually all employers engaged in manufacturing and distribution. The Shipping & Receiving Training Program is now in its 21st Training Cycle. Of the 336 students that have graduated between April 1996 and January 2003 90% have been placed on jobs. Greater West Town Training Partnership is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology.

West Town Academy Alternative High School

GWTP's West Town Academy alternative high school provides former high school dropouts from the community the opportunity to complete their high school diplomas, and prepare for college, technical training, and employment. Since the program began in March 1996, the Academy has assisted over seventy-five former high school dropouts earn their high school diploma; eighty-five percent of graduates have been placed in full-time employment and/or secondary education. In 1998, the Chicago Public Schools awarded additional student slots, allowing GWTP to increase enrollment from thirty-eight to fifty-eight students. For two years in a row, the Academy has been selected one of several schools in the city by the Chicago Public Schools to design and implement a School-to-Work fully integrated into existing curriculum, and which includes technical skills training in our Shipping and Receiving and Woodworkers Training Program.

Research and Advocacy
(Click here for information on current initiatives)

Since its inception, GWTP has pursued ongoing research, public education, and advocacy activities which pose solutions to the problems that create barriers to educational and economic opportunities for area residents.

Currently, GWTP is working as a founding member of the "Community Coalition on the Dropout Crisis" (CCDC), an umbrella group of Chicago community organizations dedicated to addressing the severe dropout crisis in the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). To learn more about their dropout studies and intiatives, please click here.

Past activities include successful advocacy work, in cooperation with GWTP's community partners, which led to the continuation and increased funding of the Job Training and Economic Development Grant program, a State program inspired in large measure by GWTP's successful Woodworkers and Shipping and Receiving Training partnerships. GWTP also worked with other non-profit organizations in seeking Illinois Department of Human Services funding for vocational skills training for TANF (Transitional Assistance for Needy Families) program recipients, and is working to inform the implementation of the new Workforce Investment Act to provide for and allow low income and welfare dependent community residents to participate in long-term vocational training.

Critical to GWTP's successful public education and advocacy efforts has been its continued ability to demonstrate to policy-makers the effectiveness of community-based economic and workforce development models. GWTP is currently actively collaborating with Chicago Commons, Jane Adams Research Corporation, the Policy Research Action Group (PRAG), and the Management Association of Illinois in the development of a Regional Manufacturing Training System that may provide support for the future sustainability of community-based vocational training. In a major new initiative, GWTP has also begun to study the feasibility of creating a Wood Industry Training and Technology Center. This project would support the growth of the woodworking industry, incubate start-up companies in the Empowerment Zone, create jobs for community residents, and provide funding support for vocational training through rental revenues.

Youth Employment Program

GWTP's Youth Employment Program provides essential education and employment opportunities for both in-school and dropout students. The recent expansion of GWTP's School-to-Work program has allowed GWTP to significantly increase its capacity to provide area youth with pre-employment, career counseling, and placement services. West Town Academy and the new Quantum Mentoring Project provide a real "second chance" for over 120 area youth each year to address basic skills deficiencies, earn their high school diploma, and receive job training and placement assistance under the guidance of community role models.

Adult Placement Programs

GWTP's Adult Placement Programs provide a comprehensive array of services to a diverse range of unemployed community residents and to local employers. Through GWTP's On-the-Job Training, Job Search Assistance, Dislocated Workers, Direct Placement, and Empowerment Zone programs, GWTP provides the skills, support, and employment opportunities critically needed by disadvantaged community residents. Since November 1988, GWTP has established On-the-Job Training Programs 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.

Welfare-to-Careers Program

In 1998, GWTP was a first-round recipient of a major grant for its innovative, mentor-based Welfare-to-Careers Program, which provides forty-six low-skilled, highly-barriered welfare recipients with job-readiness, on-the-job training, and a yearlong career apprenticeship program. The Welfare-to-Careers Program graduated its first job-readiness class of thirteen in December 1998, and now the participants will be receiving mentor-based support services as they go through on-the-job training. An additional two classes of sixteen will be enrolled into the eighteen-month program.

This grant has been leveraged to receive private support, with a major grant of $50,000 from the Lloyd Fry Foundation to provide enhanced support services and training to public aid recipients. In addition, a contract with the Illinois Department of Human Services funds direct placements of near-job-ready participants as part of a welfare-to-work enhanced support program for thirty-five recipients. Through these programs, GWTP has more than doubled the number of welfare clients in its vocational training, youth services, and adult placement programs in the past year.