UI REACH is excited to announce several partnerships with ACT that promote great outcomes for students.
Building a Work-Ready Community: ACT Boot Camp and UI REACH Drive Eastern Iowa Forward
This fall, UI REACH hosted the ACT Work Ready Community Boot Camp for Johnson County. The boot camp offered hands-on training designed for community leaders, employers, and educators who are committed to building a work-ready community. Participants learned practical ways to evaluate and build workforce skills to meet industry demands.
A central focus of the boot camp is the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), a nationally recognized benchmark for essential workplace skills. By promoting the NCRC, the boot camp empowers communities to set clear, measurable skill standards that benefit employers and job seekers alike. UI REACH’s contributions have magnified this impact, creating more inclusive pathways for individuals with diverse abilities to succeed.
“The progressive thinking and positive action demonstrated by the UI REACH team & Johnson County stakeholders shows an enduring commitment to growing the economic success of the area. ACT is excited to be working with such a dynamic group of leaders,” says Cheri Hughes, regional manager with ACT Work Ready Communities. “As a result, local residents will begin seeing the important linkage between education and workforce development and the value of matching people to jobs, based on skill levels.”
Next steps for boot camp attendees include getting businesses in Johnson County to recognize the NCRC in their employee searches. If you know of a business that might be interested in this initiative, please contact Jennifer Cremers at jennifer-cremers@uiowa.edu.
Learn more about the NCRC credential
Learn more about Work Ready Communities
Research on the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate
The ACT WorkKeys® system is a set of assessments that measure key workplace skills and form the basis for the ACT National Career Readiness Certificate (NCRC), a credential valued by employers nationwide. Recent research led by Erica Kaldenberg and Katie Abrams studied the impact of the WorkKeys® Applied Math Curriculum on first-year postsecondary students with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. Students were divided into two groups—one with structured support and one with an independent approach. Both groups participated in weekly sessions and completed online modules. While initial results showed similar assessment outcomes across classroom settings, the study highlighted the importance of fostering self-efficacy and a supportive learning environment. The UI REACH team will continue to refine their methods and further explore the curriculum’s impact on student outcomes. UI REACH is grateful to researchers from ACT who have been supporting its efforts by providing consultation and advice.
Piloting a New Tool for Social Emotional Skill-Building and Support
This August, UI REACH purchased a new ACT tool, “Mosaic,” which will be used to assess students’ social emotional skills. UI REACH psychologist, Jen Khule, will be leading the roll out pilot of this tool this spring alongside Student Support Coordinator Kim Hanrahan.
Using the tool, students will take a pre-test to determine what skills the student needs more support on, and at the end of the semester, students will take a post-test to help UI REACH understand and measure how effective those supports were. “I am super excited by it,” says Hanrahan. "We’ve come a long way since we started teaching social skills, and this tool will be a major advancement.”