Neighbor News
JVS Boston wins $1.3M for career institute
State grant support training for healthcare, life sciences jobs through Quincy College partnership at new T-accessible Back Bay location
Jewish Vocational Service Boston (JVS Boston), one of New England’s largest providers of adult education and workforce development services, has won a $1,286,348 Massachusetts Skills Capital grant to support its previously announced partnership with Quincy College to open a new healthcare and life sciences institute in Boston.
Building on the successful joint JVS Boston-Quincy College certified nursing assistant training program, the new institute will position JVS Boston to better serve unemployed and underemployed adults, with a focus on immigrants, English language learners, and BIPOC populations. Graduates will be prepared to earn credentials for employment in rapidly growing, high-demand careers in biotechnology, phlebotomy, central sterile processing, substance abuse addiction counseling, and medical billing and coding, as well as serving as medical assistants.
The institute is being created at the site of the former Boston Center for Adult Education (BCAE) at 122 Arlington Street in the Back Bay, readily accessible from MBTA subway, trolley, and bus lines. JVS Boston and BCAE merged in 2020. Once interior renovations are completed, the career training institute is expected to begin serving people seeking career training and job skills development in 2023.
JVS Boston CEO David Fleishman said: “We’re deeply grateful to Governor Baker and his Workforce Skills Cabinet for this critically important funding. The new institute will merge the skills and expertise of both partners--and expand both organizations’ instructional capacities for in-demand occupations within the Greater Boston region--helping to meet employer demand by providing populations who have been most impacted by Covid-19 entry to healthcare and life sciences career pathway jobs.”
Now celebrating its 84th year in operation, JVS Boston provides a wide range of employment, training, and English-language services to people from throughout Greater Boston and Eastern Massachusetts, including to immigrants from more than 110 nations who speak more than 70 languages.
The Skills Capital grant for the JVS Boston healthcare and life sciences institute’s patient care and central sterile processing programs was announced Friday in Lexington by Gov. Charlie Baker, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, and their three cabinet secretaries who comprise the Workforce Skills Cabinet: Secretary of Education James Peyser, Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development Rosalin Acosta, and Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Mike Kennealy. Massachusetts’ Workforce Skills Cabinet was created in 2015 to bring together the Secretariats of Education, Labor and Workforce Development, and Housing and Economic Development to align education, economic development and workforce policies to strategize around how to meet employers’ demand for skilled workers in every region of the Commonwealth.
In announcing grants to JVS Boston and 92 other educational and vocational training schools and organizations, Governor Baker said: “We are very proud of the lasting impact these grants will have on the Massachusetts workforce and the future of the Commonwealth as they prepare the next generation of innovative leaders in cutting-edge industries.”
JVS Boston is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonsectarian organization founded in 1938. JVS serves more than 16,000 individuals annually and is one of the largest community-based providers of adult education and workforce development services in New England. JVS’s mission is to empower individuals from diverse communities to find employment and build careers, while partnering with employers to hire, develop, and retain productive workforces. In support of this mission, JVS provides a wide range of adult education, vocational training, job readiness, career counseling, and job placement services, as well as related supportive services.
Founded in 1958, Quincy College is a two-year, municipally affiliated college serving approximately 3,500 students at campuses located in Quincy and Plymouth, Massachusetts. The college offers 37 associate degree programs and 27 certificate programs in a variety of disciplines, including those within Professional Programs, Liberal Arts, Natural & Health Sciences, and Nursing.
