Alia Sutton- Bey
 

Consultant | Coach | HCD Facilitator | Author | Trauma-Informed Care Practitioner

"We all have a role to play in improving humanity."

Alia has been busy over the past 30 years, from traveling abroad as an Artistic Director to providing mental health services in city schools. Alia’s work has allowed her to draw on her profound sense of community and justice to promote the development of high-quality programs for underserved and underrepresented communities.

Alia spent 19 years with the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, where she honed her program development skills.

Alia's Story

Alia spent 19 years with the Philadelphia Department of Parks and Recreation, where she honed her program development skills. While there, she produced the 1st Philly African Dance and Drum Festival, a three-day festival featuring professional dance and drum classes to the community; in 2009, the festival won the PA Parks and Recreation Excellence in Programming Award. While at the PPR, Alia trained hundreds of young professionals through summer jobs and community service and served as a shop steward for District Council 47. It was no surprise when she journeyed into the workforce development profession. A teacher at heart, she has taught at Orleans Technical College and Ashford University.

As an inaugural member of Jobs for the Future’s Young Adult Talent Development Network, a national coalition developing standards of practice for young adult workforce professionals, she is often called upon for her experience with employer engagement and program design. Alia managed an AmeriCorps, National Direct community-based service and pre-apprenticeship program that exposed opportunity youth to careers in STEM while bridging the STEM and technology divide in Philadelphia and Harrisburg, PA, and Camden, NJ. With a sense of duty to an anti-poverty message, Alia has worked tirelessly to bridge employment opportunities for youth in Philadelphia and Camden through on-the-job training, internships, and pre-apprentice and registered apprenticeship programs. She was responsible for scaling the Tech Serv Americorps Scholars program. Coordinating with Harrisburg Area School Districts, Workforce Boards, and Apprenticeship sponsors allowed her to register for the 1st Registered Pre-Apprenticeship in Information Technology in Pennsylvania.

Alia likes to joke about her past life as an artist, but this artist never dies. Alia co-founded the African Diaspora Arts Collective (ADAC) in 2004. ADAC's mission is to preserve African and African American cultural art forms. ADAC has allowed thousands of people to celebrate African and African American music and dance by curating workshops, festivals, and community classes.

Alia holds a B.S. in Sport Management and Leisure Studies from Temple University, M.S. in Human Services from Springfield College, and a Certificate in DEI: Building a Diverse Workforce from Cornell University.