May 7, 2013
Long Beach – On May 6, at the opening of its National Leadership Training Program, FAPAC announced the creation of an innovative new project-oriented, challenge-based program targeted at developing skills for emerging federal employee leaders while working to solve the dilemmas facing the federal government when addressing the needs of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) federal employees and communities.
FAPAC, with participation from the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other federal agencies, is designing this “challenge team” program to create a unique and rewarding professional development program where participants will get hands-on experience working on an interagency team to approach long-standing challenges with creativity and a fresh perspective. The program complements efforts by federal agencies to foster career development and advancement for AAPIs in the federal government per Executive Order 13515, signed by President Obama in 2009. Teams will be asked to examine and address complex policy and resource issues that the federal government is working to improve for AAPIs, specifically relating to the cross-cutting goal areas of workforce diversity, language access, capacity building and data disaggregation. The program has a two-fold objective: to provide an avenue of professional development to employees who may not get to participate on special assignments outside of their home agencies; and to create solutions to further facilitate the work of the federal government to serve unmet needs of AAPI communities.
The program will be open to all federal employees, especially those at the GS-9 through GS-14 levels, who may have limited opportunities to pursue training, detail or special assignments in or outside of their home agencies, to develop leadership and management skills and to pursue opportunities of greater responsibility. FAPAC will select up to 20 applicants to serve on small teams with the opportunity to gain skills in competencies necessary to pursue leadership positions in federal government, including project management, strategy development, communications and effective team collaboration.
Teams will have approximately six months to develop recommendations and guidance to their challenges and present their results to an interagency panel, with possibilities of implementing their work products. FAPAC intends to formally launch the program at the WHIAAPI- sponsored Federal Employee Conference (FEC) on July 12, 2013. FAPAC is targeting for the first round of projects to be underway by the fall of 2013.
FAPAC is organized exclusively for educational purposes within the meaning of Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. FAPAC is a non-profit, non-partisan organization representing the interests of over 155,000 civilian and military APA employees in the Federal and District of Columbia governments of all ranks.
For more information, please visit the FAPAC website at www.fapac.org or at challenge@fapac.org.
