Program Components:

Business-community partnership

Professional development

1499 N. State St.

San Jacinto, CA 92583

Coordinator, Career Education Special Projects

rdixon@msjc.edu

951-487-6752 ext. 1604

homemakers, and single pregnant women.

training individuals in community agencies who can refer potential students to the college.

outreach coordinators to visit community agencies and traditional as well as alternative

educational institutions to recruit students. When funds to employ the outreach workers

were exhausted, the college adopted a "train the trainer" model. Information on the

college was grouped into four categories: Matriculation, Financial Aid, Student Services,

and Career and Technical Education. Binders containing resource information on theses

four topics and accompanying PowerPoint presentations were prepared. The college

conducts train-the-trainer sessions to selected individuals at community agencies and

institutions at no cost to the requesting agency. This initial train-the-trainer session takes

about 3 hours to complete. These individuals in turn train their co-workers, by presenting

the PowerPoint and resources for any one of the four topics. These presentations are

planned to be approximately 15 minutes in length and integrated easily into staff meetings

at the community agencies/institutions. The training enables community workers to

become knowledgeable of the college's offerings, and to provide this information to their

clients and refer them to the correct contact points on campus. This practice has

centralized information on the college and reduced confusion on the part of prospective

students. This has been particularly valuable in working with social service agency clients

who are primarily single parents and displaced homemakers. Mt. San Jacinto College is

in the process of training other colleges in the region to adapt the strategy to their settings.

The college is also preparing annual updates to send to trained agencies.

Projects who was assisted by a consultant and student workers. The coordinator conducts

the training, and the student workers prepare the binders for distribution. It is

recommended that colleges wishing to implement the same strategy employ a project

coordinator to work with their campus colleagues and departments for up to 40 hours to

122

tailor the materials to their particular site. Trainings could be conducted by any of several

college departments traditionally involved in outreach. Implementing colleges should

also plan to employ a student worker for approximately 40 hours to compile resource

materials and prepare binders for the trainings.

Materials covering the four topics - Matriculation, Financial Aid, Student Services, and

Career and Technical Education - are assembled into binders that are left with the

agencies. It is suggested that trainings include a review of the PowerPoint presentations

using a laptop and projector, although successful trainings have been conducted without

that review because hard copies of the PowerPoint presentations are included in the

resource binders.

trainer model were supported by a regional consortia VTEA grant. It costs

approximately $900 to prepare 100 binders containing campus materials and presentation

CDs. Additional costs include 40 hours of coordinator time and 40 hours of student

worker time.

and institutions offering the train-the-trainer sessions. They have worked through their

career and technical advisory committees, the area tech-prep consortium, and have

developed very close ties with the CalWORKs agency and social services. The message

they deliver is that they will train a core group of individuals who can in turn train the rest

of the agency staff.

their reactions, and the response has been very positive. Newly trained trainers are also

encouraged to give feedback to the college whenever they implement one of the four

training modules. This feedback has been more sporadic, but also positive. Preparing the

materials has been a collaborative process on the campus and has resulted in much better

on-campus communication and collaboration. The practice has resulted in many more

referrals to Mt. San Jacinto College. When these referrals come to the campus they are

more aware of campus resources and procedures. It has given the college more visibility

in the community.

colleges. Mt San Jacinto College is currently developing a facilitator’s guide to encourage

replication by other colleges. The guide should be available in summer 2005.