ADVANCE
Submitted By: Frank Gerdeman
Lake Tahoe Adult Education Consortium
Website: https://advance-learnearngrow.org/
Type of Practice: Learner Transition
Program Area(s): ABE / ASE, CTE / Workforce Prep / Pre-apprenticeship, Adults with Disabilities
Region: Northern California
Consortia Involved: Lake Tahoe Adult Education Consortium
Program Overview
ADVANCE has explicitly expanded their ongoing navigation support and services to clients after they enrolled in credit-bearing coursework with a post-secondary institution, including our local college partner, LTCC.
The Program of Practice
Adults needing ongoing support, beyond just academic support, to successfully reach their goals, especially into, and through, post-secondary education and training. It is rarely the academic content or rigor that gets in the way of success, rather, it is all of the other things going on in the lives of adult learners - schedule, housing instability, behavioral/mental health, systems navigation - that are usually the cause of disengagement.
The Response
Explicitly expanded our ongoing navigation support and services to clients after they had enrolled in credit-bearing coursework with a post-secondary institution, including our local college partner, LTCC.
The Unique Features of the Program
We were (and are) able to meet the varying needs of clients at an individual level and include access to additional support such as funding (like WIOA Title I) and behavioral/mental health support though a partnership with LTCC and Timely Care (on-demand and scheduled appointment support at no cost to the student/client). Because we focus on the distinct needs and life situation of each client, we also provide support in accessing programs outside of our local partner to include other California community colleges, post-secondary training providers (like CDL training in CA and NV), and other institutes of higher education through online courses - most notably, Community College of Vermont which provides an incredible credit-for-prior learning portfolio program (which we are now helping our local partner college implement here).
The Outcome
During the 2018-19 Program/Academic Year (P/AY) the last full year, pre-COVID, our Navigators assisted just under 100 individual with enrolling in at least one credit-bearing (non-ESL or basic skills) college course. Of those 87, 57 successfully completed at least one credit-bearing course and those 57 individuals completed a total of 160 credit-bearing courses (with a 3 credit per course average). During this same one-year period, these individuals also reached an average of 34 hours of one-on-one navigation time with their assigned navigator to address a host of issues that exceeded the capacity of the college's academic counseling staff. Similar impact was seen in P/AY 19-20 (88 enrolled, 41 complete, 141 total courses) despite the move to fully remote courses for Spring 2020 quarter. P/AY 20-21, which was fully remote, still had 41 enrollees, 31 complete at least one course and a total of 112 courses completed.. By 21-22, we had 15 supported clients earn LTCC 15 Certificates of Achievement on top of successful course completions. Average hours of navigation support remained consistent in the low 30 hours of 1:1 service. Courses included such offerings as culinary, forestry and conservation, fire science/fire academy, wilderness, and general education and degree courses.