Symposium highlights ways to improve services for job-seekers – Evanston RoundTable

The City of Evanston is reaching out to local businesses, schools and nonprofits to get ideas for improving workforce development programs.

As part of this outreach, the city hosted a Reimagining Workplace Development in Evanston symposium on the morning of Wednesday, May 29 at the Robert Crown Community Center. The event included a panel that discussed workplace development practices, a speech on how to be an innovative employee in post-pandemic times by diversity, equity and inclusion consultant Khalilah Lyons, and group discussions.

Evanston’s interim Workforce Development Manager Jessica Cooper told the RoundTable that the city will use everything it heard at the workshop to develop a new action plan expected to be finalized sometime next year – though she emphasized that it wasn’t a firm timeline.

As Cooper noted, Evanston has only been actively working on workplace development for two years. At this point, the city is developing strategies to best suit the needs of residents, while also talking to businesses, nonprofits and educational institutions to get their insight, she said.

Wednesday’s panel included representatives of two major Evanston area educational institutions – Jesse Ivory, assistant vice president of workforce innovation and college partnerships at Oakton College, and EL Da’ Sheon Nix, director of Evanston community relations at Northwestern University.

The panel also featured representatives of organizations focused on supporting specific populations that struggle to find employment. Tanya Jenkins is the interim executive director at Curt’s Cafe, which provides culinary training and support to youth ages 15 to 24 who are considered “at risk” because of factors such as run-ins with the justice system, homelessness and food insecurity. Katie Levin, the last panelist, manages social media and digital outreach at Aspiritech, a tech support company that seeks to provide employment to people with autism and ADHD.

Jenkins said that not every young person that Curt’s works with is looking for a career in the food industry, so an important part of what the organization does is teaching skills and providing support that can help people succeed in any field. For example, she said, many youth simply don’t have the anger management and conflict resolutions skills that can diffuse, if not avoid, volatile situations.

Nix said that, “as one of the largest employers in Evanston,” it was important for Northwestern to let job-seekers know they have plenty of options, some of which may not require a college degree.