Reaching New Audiences with Our Conservation Landscaping Work
CBLP-A Graduates in Portsmouth, VA
SNAPSHOT: Wetlands Watch and its partners in Virginia and Maryland have developed a training and certification program for professional landscapers - The Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP) program. This program provides skills in native plants, stormwater features, and other nature-based practices. There has been a shortage of new workers in the landscape industry for years so now were extending the CBLP program to include Apprentice-level skills. These students at Churchland High School in Portsmouth, Virginia, just finished the CBLP-A program, the first class to do so in Virginia.
BACKSTORY: As we have detailed before, the Chesapeake Bay Landscape Professional (CBLP) program is a collaborative project that we have been a part of for the last nine years. The CBLP seeks to train and certify landscape professionals - from designers to installers to maintenance crews - in green infrastructure practices. Learning about native plants, stormwater feature designs and performance, installation of green infrastructure practices and maintenance of these features is all part of the program.
Hundreds of landscape professionals and green infrastructure practitioners have been trained in Virginia and Maryland and the CBLP “brand” is being recognized in hiring and contracting. With increased emphasis on “green infrastructure” and “nature-based solutions” to water management, the demand for these skills is increasing.
But the landscaping industry suffers from an inability to recruit enough new entry-level workers to meet this demand, today and into the future. There is a need to develop a pipeline of talent in the landscape field, and Wetlands Watch and its partners started looking into a CBLP - Apprentice level program, teaching entry level workers the basics of green infrastructure practices.
Using support from RISE Resilience Innovations, the CBLP team piloted a CBLP-A program at Churchland High School in Portsmouth. Working with a horticulture class in the Career and Technical Education (CTE) program a group of students went through the CBLP-A program and graduated with certificates. We will be working to expand this program in the future.
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