The "placement screen" is a central part of the MA Career Ready database. Well-designed for ease of use, it captures the main pieces of information about a young person's brokered job/internship placement needed for program staff recruiting and managing placements.
[For a deep look at the structure and functions of the placement screen, review this PowerPoint presentation: " Using the Placement Screen. " It will walk the viewer through each of the fields on the placement screen.]
Here are the main fields in that screen:
These fields allow some flexibility in describing/defining placements. Each program or region will have somewhat different information in these fields.
Here are some additional details about these fields:
ACTIVITY:
Each placement is identified by an Activity or Program Name -- such as "Summer of Work and Learning 2010" or "Health Careers Internship Program 2009-2010."
Participating organizations may have just one jobs/internship program, or sometimes several, and can identify them with different names, which allows separate reporting and analysis.
[The placement screen allows users to type in an activity name or choose from a dropdown list. The dropdown list is based on activity names previously entered.]
CAREER AREA:
Each placement may be identified by an industry sector or career area -- such as "Health Careers Pathway" or "Health and Human Services" or "Healthcare." The career areas may be based on a career pathway or program that the participant is in -- such as a health careers pathway or a carpentry vocational program -- or it may be based on the type of placement, such as business, healthcare, childcare, etc.
The placement screen allows users to type in a career area or choose from a dropdown list. The dropdown list is based on career areas previously entered.
JOB TITLE:
The job title field is an open field that users complete. Job titles are selected that clearly identifies the job and would be appropriate for use on a participant's resume. Examples may include Office Intern, Website Developer, Child Care Assistant, or Summer Day Camp Counselor.
INDUSTRY CLUSTER
The dropdown list of industries in this field has been developed from well-established sources. It offers a wide range of common choices for the brokered placements used in the many programs across the state that are active users of the MACR database.
SCHOOL OR PROGRAM:
This field should contain the name of the school for students enrolled in school, or the name of a program if the participant is not enrolled in school but is enrolled in an out-of-school youth program. [Users are encouraged to be consistent in the use of school names, generally by spelling out the full name, such as Mill Valley High School (rather than MVHS or Mill Valley HS or Mill Valley H.S.).]
ORGANIZATION:
The organization should be the name of the overall organization that organizes the employment program. It may be the name of a local YouthWorks provider, the name of a School to Career Partnership or the name of the Workforce Investment Board. [This field can be used to organize reports, and so it can be helpful to enter the name of the overall organization or partnership for a set of related programs, in order to create a way to summarize dta across several programs.]
TYPE OF PROGRAM:
This part of the placement field offers checkboxes that allow the user to identify the programs or funding sources that support the participant's work experience. You may check one or more, as applicable. If you coordinate the work of other staff, it is vital that you let all staff know what programs/funding sources they are working with. If you are involved in making placements and entering information into the placement screen, it is vital that you know what programs/funding sources support your placements.
The program checkboxes include the following.
[ ] Connecting Activities
[ ] YouthWorks
[ ] WIA Youth Regular
[ ] WIA Adult
[ ] ESE Fund Code 597
[ ] ESE Fund Code 593
[ ] DYS Bridging the Opportunity Gap
[ ] Other (specify)