From Policy to Practice: Strengthening English Language Learner Healthcare Career Pathways Across California

We align education, workforce, and employer partnerships to create sustainable pathways into high-demand healthcare careers, while providing professional development and technical assistance that equip regional partnerships with data, tools, and strategies to expand access for multilingual learners.

In partnership with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, this project provides professional development and technical assistance to adult education consortia to design and scale English Language Learner (ELL) healthcare career pathways. This work strengthens cross-sector partnerships, expands access to high-demand careers, improves outcomes for multilingual adult learners, and contributes to stabilizing California’s healthcare workforce.

The Challenge

California faces persistent healthcare workforce shortages alongside a growing population of multilingual adults seeking access to stable, living-wage careers. Despite strong policy direction, regions vary widely translating guidance into coordinated, high-quality pathways. Programs often lack alignment across adult schools, community colleges, and employers, limiting scale and impact. Grantees face common challenges in turning policy into practice, scaling effective models, engaging employers, and building partnerships and data systems for sustained impact.

Client and community needs:

  • Guidance on selecting and implementing pathway models (bridge, pre-apprenticeship, apprenticeship) aligned to local context
  • Use of labor market data to inform pathway design and investment
  • Tools to track learner progress and program outcomes across systems
  • Peer learning opportunities to share promising practices
  • Expanded work-based learning and employer engagement
  • Scalable, sustainable pathway models for multilingual learners
  • Real-time, individualized technical assistance to address implementation challenges

How We’re Taking Action

In partnership with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, we lead a professional development and technical assistance (PD / TA) strategy to support ELL Healthcare Pathways grantees in moving from policy to practice. The project strengthens regional capacity to build and scale healthcare pathways for multilingual learners.

We begin with a needs assessment, conducting virtual desk interviews with each grantee to understand regional strategies, implementation challenges, and system capacity. This establishes a baseline and ensures that PD / TA are targeted to the unique context of each region.

Our technical assistance is delivered through multiple touchpoints. Monthly virtual office hours provide space for real-time problem-solving, peer exchange, and quick response to emerging questions. For more complex needs, we offer up to 100 hours of individualized support, matched to the right experts on our team.

We also convene eight regional, full-day in-person trainings across the state. These are working sessions where grantees use labor market data to identify priority occupations and skills and engage in engage in structured partnership planning to map relationships and develop employer engagement strategies. Regional guest speakers, including employers and intermediaries, connect the work to local practice. Participants leave with tools, draft pathway concepts, and next steps tailored to their region.

Quarterly Communities of Practice focus on implementation questions, such as selecting pathway models, engaging employers, and structuring accessible programs. These sessions create space to share lessons from implementation and leave with clearer directions for next steps.

We also offer webinars on topics like regional labor markets, learner populations, acceleration strategies, and healthcare apprenticeship models. A growing resource library of recorded sessions and curated tools ensures that materials remain accessible and useful beyond a single event.

Finally, we co-lead a full-day statewide convening for grantees, contribute to a biannual newsletter, and develop toolkits to document and share effective practices across the field.

Impact: Grantees who engage with WestEd’s technical assistance and professional development leave better equipped to implement healthcare pathways with fidelity, connect ELL learners to quality employment, and sustain programs that create real opportunity in their communities.

What Makes Us Different

Start with the field, not assumptions: We ground all support in a structured needs assessment that shapes a tailored PD and TA strategy for each region.

Sustained, multi-touchpoint support: We reach grantees through regional trainings, ongoing coaching, peer learning, and on-demand resources, creating consistent support across the full arc of implementation rather than one-time engagement.

Data-driven and employer-connected: We pair labor market data with hands-on planning tools and real employer insight, helping grantees design pathways that reflect actual hiring needs and position programs for learner success and industry demand.