Building Youth Apprenticeships Through a Community of Practice
How do you accelerate apprenticeship system-building by connecting regions to learn, plan, and act together?
Client: Educate Texas
Services: Strategy & Planning, Technical Assistance, Community of Practice
Focus Areas: Youth Apprenticeship, Work-based Learning
Turning Isolated Efforts into a Shared Movement
Across Texas, regional leaders are eager to build high-quality youth apprenticeship programs that expand opportunity and meet workforce needs. Yet many found themselves starting from scratch–navigating complex requirements, reinventing models, and working in silos without shared expertise or alignment.
As part of its Career Connect Texas (formerly WE CAN TX) initiative, Educate Texas sought to change that. The organization engaged Kinetic West to design and facilitate a community of practice that would help sites move from early ideas to ready-to-launch youth and pre-apprenticeship programs.
From Convening to Coaching to Collective Momentum
Kinetic West partnered with Educate Texas to design a process blending structured convenings, individualized coaching, and peer-to-peer learning.
The goal? Ensure each participating site left with a clear, actionable plan to launch its program.
The work unfolded in four stages:
Team Identification. Sites assembled the right mix of partners–typically a school district, college, and employer—to ensure their programs met local workforce needs and fully supported students to succeed.
Kickoff Workshops. The first cross-grantee sessions built shared understanding of apprenticeship fundamentals, surfaced local challenges, and connected peers tackling similar work. Teams left energized and aligned.
Coaching Calls. Between convenings, tailored one-on-one coaching helped partners define program elements, clarify roles, and address policy or change management needs for sustainable “earn and learn” models.
Culminating Convenings. Teams shared draft plans, received peer feedback, and translated ideas into concrete commitments. The final gathering celebrated progress and reinforced collective accountability–too often missing in technical assistance work.
Key Outcomes for Progress
Clear Program Blueprints
All sites developed actionable plans with defined roles, responsibilities, and implementation timelines.
A Lasting Learning Network
Relationships built through the community of practice created a peer network that will persist beyond the project.
Accelerated Implementation
Teams built on existing tools and models rather than starting from scratch, allowing them to “go further faster.”
Capacity for Sustainability
Regions explored braided funding and data strategies to support scaling and long-term impact.
Insights for the Field:
What Makes a Community of Practice Work
The Right Team Matters.
>> Apprenticeship design succeeds when school districts, higher education, and employers co-design from the start.
Time to Work Together Is Transformative.
>> Convenings that balance content delivery with space for genuine collaboration build stronger outcomes.
External Expertise Adds Momentum.
>> National exemplars and peer learning prevent reinvention and spark new approaches.
Balance Shared Learning with Individualized Support.
>> Cohort alignment must be paired with local coaching to meet sites where they are.
Building Systems That Outlast Programs
This work helped transform disparate apprenticeship efforts into a connected network of regional leaders who share tools, language, and ambition. By creating the conditions for collaboration, Educate Texas and Kinetic West helped Texas regions move from aspiration to action–laying the groundwork for scalable, sustainable youth apprenticeship programs.
Building a network or community of practice in your region?
Kinetic West partners with states and organizations to design learning communities that turn ideas into implementation and align education, workforce, and industry leaders around shared goals.
Contact: avery@kineticwest.com to learn more.