When Erie unites to tackle problems, good things happen

Op Ed by Mary Bula, Erie Together Director, which appeared in the Erie Times-News on 4/10/2022

Collaboration is energizing. This is especially true when you have people from different backgrounds and roles working together not for their own personal gain, but instead for the greater good. As the director of Erie Together, I have been part of this kind of meaningful collaboration for more than a decade, and it has been more gratifying and impactful than I could have ever imagined.

Let me share a couple examples, starting with Erie Together’s work to support kids and help them prepare for their future. Did you know that in 2014, Erie Together launched a groundbreaking new resource to connect employers with educators to provide career exploration experiences for students in grades K-12? This program, called “Career Street,” has facilitated more than 43,000 student experiences over the last eight years! Let that number sink in for a minute: forty-three thousand experiences. Those kinds of numbers would never be possible without the ongoing commitment of educators and employers to provide high quality, age-appropriate experiences for students in elementary through senior high school. Pretty remarkable stuff.

In 2016, we took career exploration to a whole new level and, with our community partners, created the Erie County Career Pathways Alliance (ECCPA). This group is the most comprehensive cross-sector collaboration for career exploration and career pathways development that our community has ever seen. In fact, the ECCPA’s progress has been so impressive that it is viewed as a best-practice model across PA and beyond.

Engaged partners include most Erie County school districts, the three high school-level career and technical centers, six colleges and universities, Northwest Tri-County Intermediate Unit #5, Career Street, Northwest PA Job Connect, the Corry Higher Education Council, and a whole host of employers serving on our Engineering & Industrial Technology, Science & Health, and Business, Finance & Information Technology industry advisory groups. Soon we will bring on additional employers, as we prepare to launch our final two industry advisory groups focused on Human Services and Arts & Communication careers.

The ECCPA is grounded in the research-based Pathways Systems Framework developed by the National Center for College & Career Transitions (NC3T). While the structure is quite large, it operates like a well-oiled machine, again due to the ongoing commitment of engaged participants. Through the ECCPA, we have developed and deployed (using Career Street) a wide variety of in-person and virtual experiences for students like job shadows, company tours, employer showcases, pathways information sessions, and career speakers, etc., created Teacher in the Workplace experiences impacting more than 120 educators, and helped facilitate dual enrollment opportunities and new college-level programming to prepare students to meet local employers’ needs.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ECCPA’s activities and informational resources, which have been featured annually at statewide educator conferences, in the 2021/22 PA Department of Education’s Pennsylvania Inspired Leadership (PIL) Program for School and System Leaders, and regularly as part of the PA Pathways Partnership Network coordinated by NC3T.

While career exploration and workforce development have been a large part of Erie Together’s body of work, these are not the only areas of collaboration in which we’re engaged. Another project that’s been exceptionally inspiring is our Domestic Violence Action Alliance (DVAA), which we created with community partners in mid-2019 to reduce domestic violence, support victims and address perpetrators. These partners agreed, early on, to adopt Unified Erie’s data-driven and evidence-based approach to their work.

Stakeholders participating in the DVAA include the Erie County District Attorney’s office, law enforcement agencies, domestic violence agencies, higher education institutions, social service agencies, legal service providers, immigrant services providers, public health and healthcare providers, and others. In the nearly three years they’ve been working together, the group has developed a comprehensive domestic violence reduction strategy, created a Domestic Violence Resource Directory, brought new batterers intervention programming to the community through Stairways Behavioral Health, launched a public awareness campaign using social media channels, formed a Healthcare Subcommittee to address healthcare-related domestic violence challenges, and, under the leadership of the District Attorney’s office, launched a new, countywide law enforcement protocol modeled after a national best practice.

What I’ve highlighted here are just a few examples of how our community has come together in true collaboration through Erie Together to make our region a better place - one where everyone can learn, work, and thrive. If you’d like more information on these or other Erie Together initiatives, visit https://www.erietogether.org/projects.