Late in the fall of 2005, the Lancaster County Community Foundation and a group of Latina leaders approached the Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board about being the sponsor of an in-depth study that would profile the Latino community in Lancaster County with the idea that the findings would eventually lead to systems change that would benefit the community. The Board accepted the challenge and raised over $60,000 to start the project with the generous support of the Foundation, LIVE, Fulton Bank, the Alcoa Foundation, and the Board.
In hiring Alegre Research, it asked its primary researchers, Lillian Escobar-Haskins and George Haskins, to tell the story of Latinos in Lancaster County not only with statistics and quantitative measures but also with stories from the community coming out of interviews and focus groups.
What emerged was a comprehensive telling of the story of the Latino community including the first written history of the first Latinos that came to Lancaster County in the 1940s. What also emerged was five very clear barriers that Latino people face which continue to impede their progress in becoming a part of the Lancaster community. They included the high number of young people dropping out of high school, the high level of poverty among female head of households, the high level involvement of Latino young men with the criminal justice system, the low level of home ownership, and the high degree of underemployment among Latino workers.
When the report was released in December 2007 (see sidebar on left to download a copy), hundreds of Lancaster County residents signed up and participated in five brainstorming groups to develop Action Plans to address the barriers and to prioritize the investment of community assets where needed. The groups developed nearly 50 Action Plans over the course of their deliberations. These Plans were announced in May 2008 with the promise that interested parties would reassemble near the end of the year to report on progress and the work yet to be done.
Already, Action Plans related to more technical education, better communication with the Latino community, information sharing among community organizations, and a system of workforce readiness that more fully engages the community have already been accomplished.
A Steering Committee including Frances Rodriquez, Joe Morales, Carlos Graupera, Lourdes Vazquez, Mirna Alvarado, Miriam Soto, Phyllis Stellfox, Mark Wilson, Maureen Lewandowski, Deborah Gonzalez, and Scott Sheely has been shepherding the project and planning for the community progress report on November 5, 2008. The Lancaster County Workforce Investment Board has been providing staff support for this community effort.
Scott Sheely, Executive Director, said recently, "More times than we do, those of us in workforce development need to keep in mind that we work in a context where family and community issues are extremely important. They are intimately connected to things like unemployment and underemployment. This community project was a chance for the Workforce Investment Board to lead the community in thinking through those connections for the good of our system and the community as a whole."
For more information, contact Scott Sheely at 717-735-0333.
