The Good Jobs Challenge was a COVID-19 relief-funded, community-driven, employer-led workforce development federal grant housed at the Economic Development Administration at the national level and administered by the Chicago Cook Workforce Partnership at the regional level. When Health & Medicine accepted the Good Jobs Challenge award in September 2022, we saw it as an innovative, equity-focused federal investment to strengthen and stabilize the health workforce, prioritizing populations that live on the South and West sides and have experienced intergenerational poverty exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over the three-year grant period, Good Jobs Challenge funding sustained the Public Health Workforce Collaborative (PHWC) quarterly convenings and set a goal to train 300 public health workers with an 80% employment retention rate after 6 months by August 30, 2025.