30 Organizations Participate in First Year

November marks the one-year anniversary of The Academy at Jubilee! In just one year, The Academy is already making an impact in the disability community. Advanced training for frontline workers deepens their understanding and commitment to supporting people with disabilities.

One of the goals of Jubilee in starting The Academy is to combat an industry-wide workforce shortage. The Academy taught frontline workers from 30 organizations in just its first year. Training staff from other organizations means that more people with disabilities benefit from a highly trained and committed workforce.

“Jubilee started The Academy because we saw firsthand how transformative quality training can be among our own staff,” said Jubilee Executive Director Steve Keener. “We’re one year in to expanding trainings to partner organizations through The Academy, and it’s working. More learners are accessing meaningful courses. This brings three mutually reinforcing outcomes: Workers feel invested in and prepared. Services improve. People stay because they like what we’re doing here.”

Having a dedicated training center means that in one year we were able to provide 182 classes of our seven core trainings for 1,000 attendees*. Trainings teach both technical skills like CPR and medication administration, and higher-level trainings that focus on interpersonal skills such as communication and coaching.

Thanks to the success of year one, we’re dreaming even bigger. “We’re excited to expand our offerings in year two with cooking classes and courses on trauma-informed care, supporting mental health, and leadership,” said Keener. “We’re grateful to our local elected officials for championing the Academy who, along with our donors, made it possible to launch The Academy by investing in workforce training.”

*Attendees include learners who attend more than one class.