At Empower Work, we hear from thousands of workers navigating challenges related to career growth, job searches, workplace stress, finding stable employment, and more. We’re proud to support people through these moments via our peer support text line, and through partnerships with trusted community spaces like public libraries. We’re thrilled to be testing a new partnership with public libraries starting with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), with the goal to supplement the jobs and career support that public libraries offer the library patrons with the Empower Work text line.

A new, innovative workforce collaboration is launching to pilot, test, and learn from how text-based wraparound services can improve outcomes for workforce development communities and their alumni. The partnership of Empower Work, a national nonprofit that provides text-based wraparound coaching and resources, with leading local and national organizations including Memorial Assistance Ministries (MAM), NPower, Per Scholas, SkillUp Coalition, and Year Up United, soft-launched this fall and is rolling out over the next two years with the generous support of Truist Foundation and GitLab Foundation.

Over the past year, Empower Work collaborated  with the Office of the Surgeon General (OSG) as they explored a critical question: “How can workplaces be an engine for well-being?” Our team had the pleasure of working with Dr. Vivek Murthy’s research team, including Ashleigh Reeves, Project Lead, OSG Innovation and Design Team, as they explored new recommendations for workplaces rooted in worker voice. And our founder, Jaime-Alexis Fowler, was honored to be part of the launch for the new framework this fall.

In December 2022, Jaime-Alexis sat down with Ashleigh for a digital “fireside chat” with the Empower Work community to dig into the research behind the framework. This is a transcript of their Q&A as they took a look behind the scenes at how the pieces came together.