Partners

American Museum of Natural History Seminars on Science

CUNY SPS PEWL offers three semester-hour graduate credits for successful completion of Seminars on Science online courses from the American Museum of Natural History. For more information, contact Jennifer DePalma.

Learning Programs for Urban Parks

Great parks need great leaders. In partnership with PEWL, the Central Park Conservancy Institute for Urban Parks continuing education opportunities provide proven practices and firsthand knowledge on topics paramount to successful park management.

Two programs are offered:

Urban Park Management Certificate

Focusing on essential practices in urban park management, the certificate offers current and aspiring park professionals with critical skills in key disciplines.

Urban Park Leadership Program

Designed for senior-level urban park professionals, the Leadership Program offers the skills and knowledge critical to the successful management of urban parks and the public-private partnerships that support them. For more information, contact Clarke Griffith.

Staff Learning and Development Program

This PEWL project is aimed at provider agency and operations staff per shelter, program analysts, program administrators, executive level positions and those who provide shared services. The goal of the city’s Department of Homeless Services is to prevent homelessness when possible; provide temporary, emergency shelter when needed and to help individuals and families transition rapidly into permanent housing. Collaborating with other public agencies and nonprofit partners, DHS works to prevent homelessness before it occurs, reduce street homelessness, and assist New Yorkers in transitioning from shelter into permanent housing. DHS remains committed to meeting its legal mandate to provide temporary emergency shelter to those experiencing homelessness in a safe and respectful environment. For more information, contact Tanja Carter-Searls.

Anti-Bias/Trauma-Informed Training
In February 2020, DSS partnered with PEWL to deliver Anti-Bias/Trauma-Informed Training to about 17,000 DSS employees. The goal of the program is to expand DSS, HRA, and DHS staffs’ awareness and knowledge of how individual and structural bias, including but not limited to racism, and trauma influence behavior and decision-making in the workplace, and provide tools to adjust automatic patterns of thinking and mitigate bias. The budget for this nearly three year partnership is $3.5 million. For more information, contact Dorothea Nixon.

Program Management Forum

Effective program management is critical to the success of the City’s anti-poverty initiatives. NYC Opportunity, which pilots and evaluates anti-poverty programs, is dedicated to promoting capacity-building initiatives designed to improve how these programs are managed.

The Managing for Innovation Core Competency Model was developed by NYC Opportunity and PEWL. It focuses on seven core competencies needed to operate a data-driven innovation program, ranging from Strategy and Planning to Management and Budgeting, and the course allows participants to develop them in a peer-learning environment. Participants are able to discuss their strengths and weaknesses, brainstorm solutions to problems, and receive group coaching. After completing the program, participants are invited to join the Community of Practice, an alumni network that provides ongoing guidance and networking opportunities. For more information, contact Dawn Picken.

ACS Workforce Institute

The Administration of Children's Services Workforce Institute provides ongoing professional skills development of direct service staff and supervisors at ACS and its many partner agencies across the child welfare and juvenile justice sectors. Developed in 2016, the Institute is a partnership between ACS, PEWL and Hunter College Silberman School of Social Work. For more information, contact Adyna Gamboa.

DCAS Energy Management Institute

Launched in 2009 by the Department of City-wide Administrative Services’ Division of Energy Management, the Energy Management Institute (EMI) was designed to create a community of skilled energy management professionals across agencies who could contribute to meeting the city’s ambitious energy and emissions reduction goals. Through EMI, the Division of Energy Management provides city staff with instruction in energy management best practices so that they can help create a culture of energy efficiency at their agencies and implement operational improvements, energy efficiency retrofits and clean energy projects across the city’s portfolio. For more information, contact Michelle Attles.

NYC Department of Correction

In January 2019, the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) and PEWL launched a partnership to support the development of an overall organizational training strategy focused on best practices and innovative delivery methods. PEWL worked with DOC experts to design On The Job Training (OJT) and simulations for new DOC recruits and supervisors. These programs provide employees new to their position the opportunities to practice critical skills in a realistic simulated work setting or under a controlled and supervised work environment so they will be able to perform work-related tasks in a safe, productive and professional manner. For more information, contact Clarke Griffith.

CreateNYC: Leadership Accelerator

This program, developed by PEWL and the CUNY Creative Arts Team, is designed for mid-level staff working at non-profit cultural organizations that receive New York City Department of Cultural Affairs funding. There is a competitive selection process to identify up to 20 participants for a spring 2020 cohort. Participation is free of charge.

DCLA has created a series of initiatives as an outgrowth of DCLA’s diversity initiative based on learnings from the Workforce Demographics Pilot Survey conducted by SMU DataArts as well as public feedback during the planning phases of the CreateNYC cultural plan. This program is an effort to invest in mid-level cultural workers and promote diversity and equity in the cultural workforce. It is intended to provide an opportunity for professional development that will help strengthen the management skills that are integral to career growth and mobility and to build a diverse network of peers who can support one another as they develop into future leaders. For more information, contact Dawn Picken.

NYC Department of Homeless Services (DHS) Financial Independence Now (FIN) Program

Under this program, we develop and deliver the two-day Financial Independence Now (FIN) adult financial literacy and coaching course to approximately 600 case managers at NYC homeless shelters, as well as a one-day supervisory version of the course to approximately 150 shelter directors and directors of social services. Our key program partners for DHS FIN include the Adult Services Division and Office of Public/Private Partnerships at NYC DHS, as well as The Financial Clinic, a New York City-based nonprofit organization with expertise in providing financial coaching services to low-income individuals. Nonprofit shelter providers are also key partners in this training initiative. PEWL delivered interactive classroom-based DHS FIN training courses to 250 DHS shelter case managers and executives during the last 18 months. For more information, contact Rebecca Brown Cesarani.

The Models of Practice (MOP)
The goal of the models of practice is to formalize and streamline agency-wide expectations, standards and metrics for client service delivery in each of the agency’s 10 program areas (e.g. Single Adult Intake & Assessment, Behavioral Health Shelters, Families with Children Shelters, Employment Shelters, Drop In Centers, etc.). PEWL will work with external vendors and DHS stakeholders to develop and deliver programs that not only meet programmatic goals, but are aligned with DHS’ client centered mission to provide services that are strengths-based and trauma informed while working through an anti-oppressive lens. The Models of Practice learning programs will be delivered to approximately 9,000 learners. The overall budget for this critical three year partnership is $3.7 million. For more information, contact Edwina Nunez.

Family Development Credential

The Family Development Credential is an interactive, professional development training for frontline workers and supervisors from public, private and non-profit health and human services systems. The FDC curriculum was developed by the National FDC Program at the University of Connecticut.

Frontline workers earn the FDC by participating in classroom instruction, preparing a portfolio documenting the application of the concepts and skills learned, and passing a standardized exam. The program enables frontline workers to develop skills and competencies to empower families to set and reach their own goals, and to reorient the way services are delivered toward a more family-focused, strengths-based approach.

Supervisors earn the FDC Leadership credential by participating in classroom instruction, which focuses on the principles and practices of empowerment-based leadership, and preparing a portfolio demonstrating the application of skills that they have acquired in training.

For more information, contact Jennifer DePalma.

Coastal Storm Planning Training

The Coastal Storm Plan (CSP) and the associated training program emerged as a collaboration with the NYC Emergency Management Department (previously known as the Office of Emergency Management or OEM) around 2005-2006. The federal government began the CSP grant program to assist coastal cities in preparing for large coastal storms and hurricanes following Hurricane Katrina's impact on New Orleans. PEWL partnered with Emergency Management to develop a variety of instructor-led trainings, e-Learnings, training and marketing videos, as well as field guides, pocket reference guides, Just-in-Time training manuals and other operational materials to be used in hurricane shelters and evacuation centers. The partnership between PEWL and Emergency Management has resulted in the training of tens of thousands of city, state, federal, and voluntary agency staff during the past 15 years, many of whom were deployed during both tropical storm Irene and hurricane Sandy. For more information, contact Michael Schultz.

Families Forward Demonstration

Families Forward is a city program in conjunction with PEWL for parents who owe child support. It gives clients free training for jobs. The program provides training and credentials from experts with proven connections to good jobs. Career tracks include commercial driving, hotel hospitality, IT support, cyber security, construction and wood working. The program also provides one-on-one support such as job placement, financial guidance, career coaching, MetroCard, so that parents may focus on success. For more information, contact Marlowe Paraiso.

OCSS/CUNY Training Project

This PEWL program partners with the city’s Human Resource Administration Office of Child Support Services (OCSS) and offers child support services to custodial and noncustodial parents and guardians to improve outcomes for New York City children; lifting tens of thousands of them out of poverty each year. Services include establishing and enforcing child support orders, collecting and distributing child support payments, and offering programs for noncustodial parents to connect them to employment and reduce child support debt. PEWL staff has written 56 procedures, developed 43 courses and trained more than 1,000 OCSS staff.  Additionally, we have trained almost 700 participants in the greater New York City community via our Training Institute. We have modernized the training environment within the agency, introducing blended learning into the classroom and developing various eLearning programs around child support topics, including an eLearning program for use by the Administration of Children’s Services (ACS). For more information, contact Anita Staeheli.

Office of Policy, Procedure and Training (OPPT)

In partnership with PEWL, The New York City Human Resources Administration (HRA) Office of Policy, Procedure and Training (OPPT) seeks to develop comprehensive policies and procedures and deliver a new employee training program at the Department of Homeless Services (DHS). The goal of the program is to provide shelter staff with the documentation, knowledge, and skills needed to carry out their assigned responsibilities effectively through the development and implementation of organizational procedures, training manuals and interactive classroom-based courses, online learning, and deliver training courses.
This program is for newly hired and existing DHS employees and shelter provider staff. For more information, contact Tanja Carter-Searls.

OCFS Training Technology, Distance Learning and Direct Training Services Program

Under this partnership, PEWL develops and delivers e-learning courses to 100,000 child welfare and juvenile justice county and provider agency staff at the caseworker, senior caseworker, supervisor and manager levels. PEWL also trains mandated reporters of child abuse and maltreatment in New York State, as well as foster and adoptive parents. Key partners include NYS OCFS, as well as its sister State agency, the NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA). The county agency offices in each of New York’s 58 local social services districts are also key partners, as well as the nonprofit child welfare and foster care provider agencies with which the counties contract for services. Over the last 18 months, OCFS Training Technology team and administrative staff played a critical role in supporting the agency’s ability to open its statewide Human Services Training Center in Albany, a 100,000 square foot training and simulation facility, by researching, selecting, procuring and setting up cutting-edge training systems and technology. For more information, contact Rebecca Brown Cesarani.

College Now

College Now is a free college transition program for NYC Department of Education (NYC DOE) high school students. PEWL offers two classes at CUNY SPS for students: Consumer and Personal Finance and Introduction to Criminal Justice. CUNY’s College Now program enables NYC DOE high school students to develop academic momentum toward a college degree, envision options for their future, make informed choices about college and learn how their education can lead to rewarding careers. For more information, contact Vicki Caruana.

CreateNYC: Leadership Accelerator

This program, developed by PEWL and the CUNY Creative Arts Team, is designed for mid-level staff working at non-profit cultural organizations that receive New York City Department of Cultural Affairs funding. There is a competitive selection process to identify up to 20 participants for a spring 2020 cohort. Participation is free of charge.

DCLA has created a series of initiatives as an outgrowth of DCLA’s diversity initiative based on learnings from the Workforce Demographics Pilot Survey conducted by SMU DataArts as well as public feedback during the planning phases of the CreateNYC cultural plan. This program is an effort to invest in mid-level cultural workers and promote diversity and equity in the cultural workforce. It is intended to provide an opportunity for professional development that will help strengthen the management skills that are integral to career growth and mobility and to build a diverse network of peers who can support one another as they develop into future leaders. For more information, contact Dawn Picken.

Early College Initiative

The Early College Initiative at CUNY (ECI) designs, develops, and supports schools that make earning a college degree more accessible, affordable, and attainable. ECI promotes social and economic mobility by restructuring the educational experience for students who are traditionally underrepresented in higher education. For more information, contact Vicki Caruana.