by Jermyn Shannon
As we enter middle ground of the Recession, unemployment remains at an all time high, funding has declined, and most employers are required to work double the time with less pay. To help low income employers and cope with this alarming increase in workload, the Blacksonville Community Network (BCN) in partnership with Edward Waters College School of Urban Education will assist in the development of a “Community Resource Network” (CRNetwork) charged with the delivery of career counseling and professional training using an integrated-approach to education, youth services and curricula designed specifically for seniors, adults in transition, and “at risk” youth. Our technical staff will support area CBOs and businesses by empowering case workers, counselors, and employees with online resources, tips, and eLearning tools that will help them work more efficiently and effectively. We also assist social service agencies in the recruitment and retention process by implementing new ways of intake, assessment delivery, hiring, skill-building, and community awareness strategies. We understand the importance of innovative methods of training that meet diverse learning styles. For example, a caseworker can reduce administrative and transportation time by E-mailing or texting her follow-up reports from a client’s home without returning to the office.
EWC School of Urban Education will be supported by community partners, a central office and training center, and a minimum of one full time technical assistant /trainer provided by the Blacksonville Community Network (BCN). Its local partners, its partner’s clients, and the designated sites will be linked through the internet using a local broadband provider, such as Comcast or Bellsouth. By using a local internet service provider, the CRNetwork will be able to directly affect community-wide growth in underserved areas in need.
The CRNetwork’s website and information will be hosted, developed and maintained under EWC’s School of Urban Education’s Middle College by the Blacksonville Community Network. To expand reach, a dedicated channel under the Blacksonville Community Network’s top ranked homepage (www.blacksonville.com) will also link Partner sites creating an effective listserv of neighborhood activities, events, businesses, and services to establish a strong since of community ownership and inclusion.
The vision is for the CRNetwork is to link the homes of 25-50 disadvantaged youth, foster care recipients, mentees, etc to their caseworkers so they can interact more frequently and effectively leverage our the various support programs.
To meet this end, Blacksonville will advocate for improved Broadband infrastructure in order to integrate support services and automate administrative processes so that dedicated caseworkers will have adequate time to communicate effectively with their clients. As part of this automation, Internet connections with high speed broadband will permit CBO’s access to existing State and City social service agency networks to collapse administrative process cycles and pertinent information, thus affording more time for conducting and evaluating private counseling through a password-protected, intranet environment, as required by law. As well, the CRNetwork will facilitate entry into the job market for able seniors and foster care students by connecting them to virtual job banks, providing online mentor matches and by offering supportive and practical business advice, such as resume critiques, broadband usage tips, and job listings to process employment applications online.
BCN will support new media training for youth (Digipreneurship) who aspire to pursue higher wage technology-related jobs by offering real world experience to program participants. Finally, it will offer more effective, efficient and personalized “life skills” training with computerized Individual Action Plans (IAP) to create full-functioning, responsible adults who are better able to retain the jobs they acquire (as measured by job retention rates and expressed employer satisfaction). Last, it will give computer-based training to residents and small businesses seeking to enhance their knowledge and competitiveness while supporting them to mentor and advertise online.
In practice, a participating teenage foster child will be able to log on a PC at home using the minimum requirements for Broadband, as defined by the National Technical Information Administration NTIA as “a means of providing two-way data transmission with advertised speeds of at least 768 kilobits per second (kbps) downstream and at least 200 kbps upstream to end users or providing sufficient capacity in a middle mile project to support the provision of broadband service to end users”.
The first thing the user will see is an Internet access screen to EWC’s School of Urban Education, Pre College Academy (P.C.A.) with recent posts about the latest news from the Community Resource Center. From there the foster child can move to other content and pages where he/she can see his/her training class schedules or use a web browser to access other websites to research or complete online projects that have been assigned by the designated BCN trainer. A user can email his/her caseworker or mentor, assist another trainee with their assignment and use File Transfer Protocol (ftp access) to download or upload material from designated Internet sites. The caseworker will be able to collaborate in “real time” with clients or other caseworkers to compare experiences and interact online using the latest remote applications that fit our processes.
The Internet will serve as an efficient means of support care, customer service and to create a low-cost community network. This electronic community model is scalable, replicable and interoperable. The Community Resource Network will link two CBO training Centers: DOT Street Complex and the Schell Sweet Center across from Edward Waters College. It will also link a minimum of 12 public-access PCs, mentors and the 80 program participants.
The Blacksonville Community Network has serviced the greater First Coast community for nearly ten years. The private, minority owned and operated (MBE) company has helped more than 1,000 local businesses survive and creates employment and entrepreneurial opportunities to promote sustainable models of urban development. In order for public computer centers to become self-funding and highly functioning entities for its stakeholders, most Community Based Organization (CBOs) charge fees for training. CBOs are also PC distribution centers for the sale of affordable state-of-the-art computers and service delivery. The Blacksonville Community Network will recruit wholesale manufactures and create dynamic fundraiser opportunities for donated PCs, IT services and other necessary items. As part of this initiative, BCN will administer and assess Individualized Action Plans (IAP), design a broadband awareness and education campaign, install and network all training labs, hire and train all computer trainers, develop offline and virtual curriculum, provide access to affordable computers, and ensure high speed broadband Internet access to all project participants.
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