By SHERRY HALBROOK
What do you need to know to better perform your job?

Is a new technology being introduced at your agency? Is your agency taking on a new initiative that requires new skills? Or have changes in your profession or field left you unprepared to deal with the daily issues facing you on the job?

Tell the Public Service Workshops Program staff. The PSWP can help you get that missing information, skill or new technology you need to stay current in your profession.

Providing workshops that help you maintain and increase your professional skills and enhance your chances for promotional opportunities is what PSWP is all about, according to PEF Director of Education and Training Clifford Merchant.

The workshop program is funded through Article 15 of the PS&T contract and depends on a working partnership among labor, management and the higher-education community. But it also needs the direct input and support of the people it is meant to benefit.
What do you need?

“It’s largely the requests, suggestions and ideas of PEF members, along with those of their supervisors and agency managers, that let us know which workshops to offer,” says PSWP Program Director Kary Jablonka.

PSWP was suspended during the prolonged contract bargaining, but was revived last fall after the PS&T contract was signed.

“PSWP was out of sight and out of mind for a while, but now it is back and we want PEF’s PS&T members to realize that these workshops are there to meet their needs,” Merchant says. “And if they need a workshop on a topic that’s not offered, just tell us. We’ll do our best to meet that need.”

If you and your co-workers are not sure what your training priorities should be, PSWP staff may be able to come to your worksite or PEF division meeting to talk it over.

“Focus groups are an important way for us to find out about learning priorities at agencies and worksites,” Jablonka says.

Choices in the PSWP catalogs range from business writing and how to make technical presentations to the use of global-positioning systems, or how to identify and deal with “oppositional-defiant disorder.”

Workshops in basic computer skills are no longer offered because the demand was so great it would exhaust all of the program’s resources and still leave a large unmet demand for more, according to Merchant and Jablonka. However, workshops in using advanced specialized software are offered when the need is identified. The technology for delivering the workshops is changing, too. Some workshops are teleconferenced or videoconferenced so that groups in different parts of the state can participate in the same training. And on-line workshops are offered to provide learning opportunities with more flexible schedules.

Check it out
You can access information about PSWP online at www.albany.edu/pdp/pswp and even request or apply for workshops through the website.

Or call 1-800-877-PSWP to enroll in a workshop, to get more information, set up a focus-group meeting or suggest a workshop topic.

The PSWP catalog of workshops scheduled for April through June will be distributed to state agencies and PEF offices soon.

Even if the deadline has passed for enrollment in a workshop you want to attend, you should still apply, Jablonka says, because they will make every effort to get you in if any openings are left or if an enrollee cancels.

How PSWP works
• Get workshop fliers, catalogs, and application forms from your agency's training or personnel office, your PEF regional office or call 1-800-877-PSWP.

You can go online to www.pef.org and click on the link from Education and Training, or go directly to www.albany.edu/pdp/pswp.

• All PS&T employees are eligible to apply. You need your supervisor’s approval. Some workshops have prerequisites. If too many applications are received for a workshop, they are ranked by job duties, professional need and other information on the application.


• The PS&T contract pays for the workshop, but you must pay for any books, supplies and travel unless your agency agrees to shoulder this expense. You need your supervisor’s approval of release time for attendance at a workshop during work hours.

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