Narrative: b. 3.

The Department of Labor indicates that at the end of SCSEP Program Year 2021, Washington State’s SCSEP eligible minority population based on Census data was 25.7%. Through the end of Program Year 2021 the SCSEP programs in the state were all providing services to minority participants at a higher rate than the Census data identifies. The minority service rates range from a high of 97.5% minorities served, by the NAPCA Set-Aside grant (designed to serve Native Americans or Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders) to Goodwill’s 30.3% minority’s service rate. The State grantee and AARP National grantee served minorities at 37.6% and 42.3% respectively in Program Year 2021.

The SCSEP programs will continue to target minority populations through outreach and recruiting programs. Additionally, the programs are continuously building relationships with ethnically and culturally focused community entities to not only identify prospective minority participants, but to serve as Host Agencies for Community Service Assignments and potentially unsubsidized employers for participants. These relationships exist and are being developed with Native American tribes and community resources, Hispanic organizations, Asian community programs and multi-cultural organizations. Relationships with ethnically and culturally focused entities also provide SCSEP programs help identifying culturally relevant supports for participants and to support networking with culturally relevant potential employers for participants.