Elevating our Team
Committed to
Equitable Growth
The work we do in our community to serve job seekers and employers at Capital Area Michigan Works! is impactful, and we couldn’t do it without our dedicated team. This year, we grew and evolved our team in the tri-county region to ensure that services to job seekers and employers met their needs.
2021 marked Carrie Rosingana’s first full year as CEO after serving as CAMW!’s chief operating officer since 2015. Tekea Norwood, who has 16 years of experience in workforce development and previously served as CAMW!’s program compliance manager, was promoted to COO. Nick Chaffin, previously a data officer for CAMW!, is now our program compliance manager. Robert Ramon, previously part of client support services with Peckham, Inc., joined our administrative team. Amirika Richardson transitioned from our Business Resource Network to become our first clean slate navigator. And we welcomed Derek Manchip, accounting assistant.
With support from our partners at Peckham, our Clinton County American Job Center moved to a new, even more physically accessible location, and our Clinton County team worked tirelessly to make our new center welcoming and functional for all who enter the doors.
Not to mention all of the other passionate, driven staff at CAMW!. We simply couldn’t be prouder of our entire team and their dedication to serving our community.
As our team grew, we looked internally at our processes. It’s not surprising that workforce development faces a lot of inequities and barriers — and the CAMW! team has always been dedicated to addressing these injustices and biases both internally and externally. We knew if we were advocating for inclusive spaces by encouraging employers we work alongside to examine their workplace environments, hiring practices and physical spaces, we needed to do the same.
In our three-year strategic plan, developed in 2018, we committed to conducting a diversity, equity and inclusion audit to assess areas for improvement. We examined every aspect of what we do at CAMW! to determine not only what we’re doing well, but how we can improve. We looked at our physical spaces, our program materials and our external communications — including our website, social media, programmatic and employer-focused collateral, annual reports, media articles and brand standards to ensure communications materials and approaches represent diverse audiences. Along with observations of each of these areas, the audit includes recommendations for increased inclusivity and diversity. Some of those areas we’re working to improve are accessibility on our website and social media, additional resources for people who are not English speakers and using images that are more diverse in body size and age. These are direct action steps we can — and will — implement from the audit.
We’re also working on portions of our audit that aren’t tied directly to communication. This includes evaluating our American Job Center locations on a consistent basis to ensure that they are physically accommodating to people of all abilities and ensuring policies and processes consider DEI best practices as they are developed and implemented. Our hope is to continually improve to make our spaces and services always welcoming to all.
We’re proud of the progress we continue to make each year, and we’re looking forward to the ways we can continue to become even more inclusive and welcoming for all job seekers and all employers.
