Chicago Commons – Chicago, IL
Chicago Commons is a neighborhood-focused non-profit organization that supports and empowers under-resourced individuals, families, and communities in overcoming poverty and systemic barriers. Chicago Commons utilizes a multi-generational approach to its available services, which primarily focus on childhood education, family support services, and senior services.
Their Family Hub programs include a range of support services which help to strengthen families’ economic mobility. These services focus on workforce development and educational opportunities including financial and employment coaching and supporting parents in career pathways and post-secondary education.
Support from the Fund for Workforce Equity is enabling Chicago Commons to deepen parent engagement in its Pathways for Parents (Pathways) program and work toward its goal of organizing, engaging, and empowering parents to build an ecosystem of family-supportive job training, education, and employment opportunities. Grant funds helped Chicago Commons implement new parent-led subcommittees, facilitate Strengthening Family Coping Resources (SFCR) Peer-to-Peer support groups, and establish an Employer Cultivator.
As part of this work, Chicago Commons has also deepened collaboration with fifteen Chicago-area partners who share the organization’s values of parent empowerment and engagement and who are working together to build a pipeline of family-supportive skills training and employment opportunities.
The project’s objective is for the Employer Cultivator to establish resilient pipelines for parents to join these companies, thereby dramatically increasing retention due to a mix of well-trained parents and family-supportive employer practices.
As a part of the support from the Fund for Workforce Equity, Chicago Commons meets regularly with fellow grantees as a part of a learning community. “The insights gained from participating in the FWE program have proven invaluable in our efforts to apply concepts and tools beyond our own context. The coaching and technical support we’ve received in areas such as power dynamics and journey mapping have significantly enhanced our leadership approaches and the operational processes we employ to integrate worker input. It has helped us challenge program decisions to ensure that we are grounding our implementation with parent worker voices.” -Vikki Rompala, Vice President of the Family Hub