EKCEP Recognizes National Workforce Development Month; Celebrates 55 Years of Service in Eastern Kentucky
Fifty-five years after its formation, Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), Inc. is capping National Workforce Development Month in 2023 by celebrating more than half a century of exemplary service in Eastern Kentucky.
Formed in 1968—one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson announced the creation of the Concentrated Employment Program (CEP)—EKCEP serves 23 counties in rural Eastern Kentucky and manages the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, providing an array of crucial workforce services for job seekers and employers.
“EKCEP has been a mainstay in Eastern Kentucky for 55 years and an enduring reminder of the benefits that partnership and collaboration can have for our communities and the region we serve,” said EKCEP Executive Director Rebecca Carnes-Miller. “And what better time to look back and celebrate that history than now following National Workforce Development Month.”
EKCEP was formed when a consortium of Community Action agencies in Eastern Kentucky partnered to establish a non-profit organization with the sole mission to "promote, encourage, and engage in” available workforce services and provide opportunities for the regional workforce to prepare for and obtain employment.
Now one of only three CEPs remaining nationwide, EKCEP has assisted thousands of Eastern Kentucky workers step onto new career paths and enjoy self-sustaining employment that enabled them to remain and thrive in the region. The agency’s ethos of collaborative advancement continues today through its Kentucky Career Center JobSight network, which provides services designed to assist Eastern Kentuckians as they step onto and maintain career pathways in a variety of industries.
“A strong workforce development system is a vital link between people looking for work and employers searching for the right candidates to fill open positions at their businesses,” Carnes-Miller added. “At EKCEP we are proud to be a part of that system and look forward to maintaining that link as we further our mission to prepare, advance, and expand the workforce of Eastern Kentucky.”
In the past two decades, EKCEP has evolved its service model to also leverage partnerships with other workforce or economic development organizations that enabled the procurement of federal and state funding to supplement the effects of available services or create new programs to benefit eligible jobseekers and employers. Resulting programs such as Hiring Our Miners Everyday (HOME) and the Strategic Initiative for Transformational Employment (SITE) have proven effective at furthering EKCEP’s goals of developing programs that benefit Kentucky’s workforce.
“As we recognize EKCEP’s 55th year of service and pay homage to our nation’s workers during Workforce Development Month,” Carnes-Miller added, “we are also keen to look forward to new opportunities to build upon our past and develop a workforce that is prepared to meet the challenges of an advancing economy that is becoming increasingly more global and competitive.”
For more information about Kentucky Career Center JobSight, including JobSight locations across the 23-county service area, visit jobsight.org.
EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for job seekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org or http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.
