LANSING – The United States Department of Labor awarded a $2 million

grant to the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth early last week to develop new methods to train dislocated workers that can be replicated throughout the Mid-Michigan region.

This demonstration grant, referred to as the Mid-Michigan Partnership for Training in Healthcare, will initially be used to build the

skills of dislocated workers in the Flint/Genesee County area, where significant numbers of workers have found themselves without employment due to major shifts in the auto industry.

The Michigan DLEG has designated the Prima Civitas Foundation as the project manager for the grant, largely based on its success in managing the Mid-Michigan Innovation Team Workforce Innovation In Regional

Economic Development initiative, which covers 13 counties in the Mid-Michigan region, including the Flint/Genesee County area. The Corporation for a Skilled Workforce will also provide strategic leadership

for the grant.

The Prima Civitas Foundation will work with the Greater Flint Health Coalition, one of its MMIT partners, which will expand and replicate its successful Flint Healthcare Employment Opportunities Project model

to implement this exciting initiative to retrain dislocated workers for careers in nursing and other healthcare-related positions.

The Prima Civitas Foundation will incorporate M-PaTH into its overall strategy for regional collaboration and work closely with M-PaTH partners to ensure regional coordination occurs to effectively replicate this training demonstration throughout the Mid-Michigan region.

Prima Civitas Foundation President & CEO David Hollister noted that this is an exciting opportunity not only to retrain regional workers in a new high-demand field, but this grant also continues the expansive trend of

collaboration that this region has built. �??We are confident that we will produce a viable, reproducible training system that can be integrated throughout the Mid-Michigan region to retrain our dislocated workers for jobs of

today and the future,�?� Hollister added.

The three year grant is expected to fund operations this fall.

a>>