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WORK EXPERIENCE COMPONENT: TRANSITIONAL JOBS Description of the component. Provide a summary of the activities and services. Program breakdown by weeks: Week 1 - CEO’s program begins with a two-day paid orientation which is referred to as Pathways to Employment. During the orientation, CEO employees assist each participant in assembling all documents necessary for employment and benefits. Additionally, the first topic areas of training (e.g., workplace safety) are covered to prepare participants for work crews. Participants complete an employability assessment which informs the CEO employees of how prepared the individual is to obtain employment and maintain a long- term connection to the workforce and serves as the foundation for how the program is tailored to participant needs. Weeks 1-20 – Total length of this section is a minimum of 1 week and no more than 20 weeks; customized based upon participant needs. Once one completes P2E, the next step of increasing employability is paid real world work experience paired with training and feedback. The focus of transitional jobs is developing the soft and hard skills that are crucial to obtaining and retaining a full-time job. CEO’s subsidized work-based learning curriculum is designed to improve participants’ employment. CEO’s participants work on crews (about 5-8 CEO participants and a Site Supervisor) and are paid at least minimum wage to work alongside full-time employees up to 4 days a week. Site supervisors create structure for participants by providing daily tasks, deadlines, and feedback. Participants are matched with work crews that best fit their availability, interests, and skillsets. This “crew-based” training approach places each participant in real work environments, where they learn how to interact with coworkers in a constructive, cooperative manner, work through workplace conflict effectively, and learn how to receive feedback and direction from site supervisors. In Detroit, CEO partners with SOCRRA, Trinity Health and Block by Block to provide training to the participants. At SOCRRA, individuals are responsible for recycling and reclamation work; at Trinity Health, individuals provide janitorial services in a healthcare setting to help halt the spread of communicable diseases and at Block by Block they provide litter abatement and beautification services. All CEO crews include trained and professional crew leadership, insurance, workers compensation, and administrative and logistical support. The Detroit Site Director and site supervisors meet on a bi-weekly basis with the transitional job employer partners to discuss crew maintenance and participant performance. To reduce barriers to the program, CEO also provides participants with support services such as transportation, work clothing, tools and training. By working on active crews, CEO participants learn many transferable soft and hard skills that will help them to become Job Start Ready (JSR). Hard skills training objective: While the jobs participants are doing varies by work crew, the hard skills they obtain are transferrable across industries. These hard skills include equipment management (proper use of personal protective equipment, proper lifting, potential hazard identification, injury/incident reporting), project management, task structuring, and workplace safety (through OSHA certification). The advanced training pathways allow for additional hard skill training in digital literacy (email, video calls, and other digital tools) and specific credentialing in transportation and IT. Additional hard skills specific to industries (e.g., landscaping equipment use) can be obtained based on work crew assignment. Trinity Health individuals learn halting the spread of communicable diseases, proper management of chemicals and hospital cleaning supplies and also receive OSHA training. Other skills and soft skills: SOCCRA, Trinity Health and Block by Block each identified specific skills training objectives they wanted to see participants exhibit in SWBL in defining the partnership. For example, CEO and SOCCRRA identified that building durable skills such as being on time for work and an ability to work with colleagues, in addition to practice sorting materials, will demonstrate readiness for unsubsidized employment with the company. CEO’s program also emphasizes soft skills through job coaching, job development, and the transitional job 1/29/26, 8:18 AM State Plan MI FY26 - Original Submission https://dam-fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/microsite/snapet-mify26stateplan//index.html 78/181