Fact
Sheet - Community-Based Health Care Retraining Bill
February 15, 2007
Senator Russ Feingold has introduced the
Community-Based Health Care Retraining Act to help displaced
workers retrain for jobs in the health care sector. The Community-Based
Health Care Retraining Act would amend the Workforce Investment
Act to help communities create programs that would retrain
displaced workers and prepare them for high-demand health
care jobs if a community has both significant manufacturing
or service sector job losses and shortages in the health care
professions.
The Feingold legislation would:
- Authorize a demonstration project to help qualifying communities
to retrain interested workers who have been displaced from
the manufacturing or service sectors for jobs in the health
care professions.
- Provide a total of $25 million for demonstration grants
for qualifying community partnerships, led by local workforce
development boards, to provide this crucial training.
Communities would have flexibility in how
they use the demonstration grants, based on their specific
needs. Possible uses include creating or increasing capacity
at educational and training centers by, for example:
- Expanding facilities
- Expanding course offerings
- Hiring faculty
- Providing assistance with student loan repayment for faculty
- Assisting with establishing/expanding clinical educational
components
- Purchasing additional equipment, such as computers and
books
And/or providing student support services,
including:
- Providing tuition assistance
- Establishing/expanding distance education
- Providing transportation assistance for students
- Providing child care for students with families
This bill authorizes $25 million for the
pilot project and is offset by administrative funds from either
DOL or HHS. |
