Food & Nutrition [Volume 18, Number 3]

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Helping People
Help Themselves
...
__ ,:
n ancient Chinese proverb
says, "Give a man a fish
and he has food for a day.
Teach a man to fish and
he has food for a lifetime."
This same philosophy underlies the
current interest in "welfare reform"
and the growing consensus in our
country that people benefit most when
they are helped to help themselves.
The food assistance programs are
central to efforts to help public aid
recipients become self-reliant. The
Food Stamp Program-USDA's
largest and most extensive food pro­gram-
has had built-in work incentives
for some time. Now, under strength­ened
program rules, all states are
operating employment and training
(E & T) programs for food stamp
participants.
During fiscal year 1988, states
expect to serve approximately 1 .6 mil­lion
people through these programs.
This total is higher than the combined
number of welfare recipients served
through work programs operated
through AFDC (Aid to Families with
Dependent Children) and the JTPA
(Job Training Partnership Act) Pro­gram
administered by the Department
of Labor.
In this issue of Food and Nutrition,
we'll look at some of the ways state
and local food stamp managers have
tailored their employment and training
activities to recipients' needs. We'll
also look at some private efforts to
help people join or re-enter the work­force,
and how some caring teachers,
health professionals, and business
leaders are helping young men and
women build independent lives.
Food Stamps ...
Bringing Work
Into Focus
In an earlier interview in this maga­zine,
Anna Kondratas, administrator of
the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS),
assessed USDA's food assistance pol­icies
in these words: "There is no
doubt that our programs provide a
nutritional safety net for low-income
people, and spending on that net has
expanded substantially since 1980."
But food programs, she noted, must
be viewed in the context of the overall
welfare system. And the growing con­sensus
among both the general public
and officials at every level of govern­ment
is that such programs should
encourage self-sufficiency and provide
a ladder out of poverty. Welfare
should help people help themselves.
Changes strengthen
work requirements
The Food Stamp Program has had
some form of work requirement since
1971, when able-bodied recipients
between the ages of 18 and 60 were
first required to register for work.
Then, as now, mothers of young chil­dren
were among those exempt from
the requirement, as well as persons
enrolled in other work and training
programs.
Despite token compliance, register­ing
alone did not put many people to
work. To strengthen the work incen­tive,
states were subsequently given
Every state has some type of program to
help food stamp participants prepare for
and find work. Here, Rebecca Varella of
Delaware meets with case managers and
supervisors. (See story on page 15.)
Summer 1988
the option of requiring nonexempt food
stamp recipients to search for jobs.
In 1981, the law was again
amended to authorize any political
subdivision in any state to operate a
workfare program. As of 1986, 40
states were requiring job search, and
17 sites with program jurisdictions
were operating food stamp workfare
programs.
In April 1987, states began imple­menting
provisions of the Food
Security Act of 1985, which calls for
expanded efforts to help food stamp
participants prepare for and obtain
productive employment. The new rules
require that every state have an
employment and training program.
..
3
Federal grants and matching money
have enabled states to plan and
launch meaningful activities to help
food stamp recipients move into regu­lar
employment. The law allows states
broad discretion in shaping programs
according to their available resources
and the specific needs of their regis­trant
pool.
Nationally, this "pool" represents
about 1 0 percent of all food stamp
recipients. As a group, it is distinct
from those who participate in the work
programs required under Aid for Fam­ilies
with Dependent Children (AFDC).
Food stamp work registrants are
predominantly young and male, with a
high school education. They tend to
have a work history and to receive
food stamp assistance for relatively
short periods. The new employment
and training programs can be tailored
to this group's special characteristics.
States are expected to provide
basic, inexpensive services to as
many eligible people as possible.
Such services may be successful in
moving the more employable recip­ients
toward independence, and iden­tify,
in a way that a mere office visit
cannot, those who need the extra help
of more costly intervention.
4
Variety of services
provided by states
Currently, all states have approved
plans in place, but specific compo­nents
vary.
The largest group of recipients are
enrolled in "job search." This compo­nent
requires individuals to inde­pendently
contact employers in search
of employment and may include job
counseling and referrals.
Almost all states have included a
job search component in their 1988
plans. These components will serve
an estimated 920,000 participants.
As federal managers explain, this
basic level of individual job search is
already a significant notch above mere
work registration. Regional food stamp
staff who are reviewing the implemen­tation
of state employment and train­ing
programs have reported that sites
visited had supportive, courteous, and
enthusiastic staff. Some job coun­selors,
they say, go beyond referrals
to drum up possible positions.
Ron Pelissier, one of the reviewing
staff in FNS' Mid-Atlantic Regional
Office, says the focus is no longer on
conforming to a rule-having food
stamp recipients register for work-but
on actually putting them to work. In
San Diego has had job clubs for food
stamp participants for the past 5 years.
Courses include 4 days of classroom
work and 4 days of soliciting job
interviews by phone. (See story on
page 9.)
many cases, that means finding ways
to deal with special circumstances­such
as poor work skills or a lack of
child care-that have made it difficult
for recipients to take jobs.
He also notes that states that
already had job search in effect before
the employment and training require­ments
have gotten off to a faster start.
Their task, he says, is to refine and
refocus their programs.
Many states have
job search training
To help participants find employ­ment,
41 states have special training
on job search. Through workshops,
job clubs, and other activities, partici­pants
learn successful job hunting
techniques. In 1988, nearly 285,000
people will be involved in this training.
Don Cundiff, chief of Food Stamp
Program operations in the Southwest
Regional Office, speaks favorably of
this component.
Food and Nutrition
"A primary value of this type of
training is the structure it provides," he
says. "Whether clients have been
unemployed for 3 weeks, 3 months, or
3 years, the training definitely adds
structure to their lives and their job
search.
"This seems to be particularly true
of the experienced workers who may
have forgotten some of the skills
required in seeking work." He adds
that younger recipients, who may lack
both work experience and skills,
sometimes require more intensive
intervention.
For recipients who need additional
services, many states combine job
search with such other options as
work experience, adult education, and
vocational training. In 1988, states
anticipate placing 110,000 people in
workfare or work experience pro­grams;
enrolling 81 ,000 people in
vocational or technical training; and
providing remedial education to
73,000 people.
In every state, there are exemplary
programs, and several of them are
described in individual articles in this
issue.
Coordinating with
other agencies
A special problem of our huge wel­fare
system has been its fragmentary
nature-different federal departments
support independent programs, many
of which overlap or actually compete
in services offered.
States that choose to offer a broad
array of employment and training serv­ices
to food stamp work registrants
have complete flexibility to merge their
programs or make them compatible
with existing programs in the same
project area.
Below are examples of cooperative
arrangements with employment and
education systems and other welfare
programs that multiply the impact of
limited funds.
• Major components of the employ­ment
system are the Department of
Labor's Job Training Partnership Act
(JTPA) and State Employment Serv­ices.
By working with the private
industry councils established by JTPA,
states may seek to increase the indus­try
and business openings available to
food stamp work registrants.
In Wood County, Ohio, the JTPA
program offsets the cost of operating
Summer 1988
job clubs by making job search
activities available to other work pro­grams.
State Employment Services
frequently administer cost-free tests of
literacy, aptitudes, and interests, as
well as offering counseling, job
development, and recruitment
services.
• Operators of food stamp employ­ment
and training programs may be
able to tap into the child care, trans­portation,
or other support services
established for participants in other
welfare-related work programs, such
as Aid for Families with Dependent
Children (AFDC). Some food stamp
recipients may qualify for federal
assistance targeted to special popula­tions,
such as refugees and Native
Americans.
• There are also many opportunities
to cooperate with existing vocational
and adult basic education. School
boards and other community-based
organizations offer a wide variety of
basic and remedial classes. Mental
health agencies, hospitals, and drug
abuse centers frequently offer classes
on wellness and self-esteem.
In Tennessee, JTPA-funded com­munity
college vocational education
classes faced cancellation because
too few students were enrolled. By
placing food stamp employment and
training participants in the unfilled
slots, everyone benefited.
Hawaii uses several existing com­munity
resources to provide employ­ment
and training services at no cost
to the Food Stamp Program. These
services include academic testing and
instruction, career assessment and
counseling, job search and referrals,
vocational training, and community
service employment.
These are only a few examples of
the creative networking typical of the
most successful employment and
training programs. Combining existing
resources makes the most economical
use of staff, equipment, and facilities.
Many states combine job se:ar:c~h~w:it~h~-------......:. ______ _j
other activities, such as vocational or
technical training, workfare or work
experience programs, or adult education.
5
The 1985 Food Security Act man­dated
that USDA estaQUsh per­formance
standards to ensure that
states operate meaningful employment
and training programs. A basic goal is
to include as many work registrants as
possible.
Under the standards, states must
place 35 percent of all food stamp
recipients who are not exempt from
work requirements into an employ­ment
and training program by the first
quarter of fiscal year 1989.
The Food and Nutrition Service has
already begun a major evaluation of
both the administration and the results
of the new employment and training
programs. An independent contractor
is collecting data at 56 program sites
that have agreed to participate in the
evaluation.
The study report, which will be sub­mitted
to Congress in January 1989,
will describe how the different pro­grams
work, whether states are meet­ing
their commitments, and how cost­effective
the various approaches are.
With a clear picture of the impact of
various activities on employment,
earnings, and food stamp participa­tion,
states can identify and share suc­cessful
techniques.
The study is expected to shed light
on the comparative results of basic
and more elaborate programs, and
provide follow-up data on participants,
among other things.
Most food stamp officials believe the
employment and training programs
represent a valuable step toward
reducing welfare dependency.
"Outside factors, such as the avail­ability
of jobs, will set some limits on
the dollar savings and the drop in
caseloads," says Don Cundiff. "But if
we are willing to stay the course, I am
confident that job search and training
money will be well spent."
This expectation is supported by
demonstration projects that have
shown workfare and work-related proj­ects
to be cost effective. However, as
Anna Kondratas points out, the value
in helping people help themselves
cannot be wholly quantified.
"Any system that strengthens the
reciprocal obligations and mutual
respect between welfare recipients
and the rest of society benefits us all,"
she says.
article by Wini Scheffler
6
''E&T''
Up Close
A Look At Food Stamp
Employment & Training Projects
In Several Areas
Flexibility Is Key
To Matching Jobs,
People, And
Resources
"I never dreamed I'd find a job in a
place like this," says June Hayward,
explaining how she came to be a sec­retary
for the food stamp employment
and training (E & T) counselor for
Canadian County, Oklahoma. Hay­ward
is one of nearly 11 ,000 food
stamp participants who have found
employment through Oklahoma's E & T
program since its inception in 1985.
Her reentry into the job market
seemed to be one frustrating experi­ence
after another. She was, after all,
starting out with several strikes
against her-her age (mid-50's), lim­ited
work experience, and limited mar­ketable
skills.
"I worked in a hospital before my
daughter was born," Hayward says,
"but they told me they weren't hiring
nurses' aides right now."
Hayward had quit work after the
birth of her child and devoted herself
to the role of fulltime mother and
homemaker for nearly 16 years. Her
husband preferred that she be at
home and he had made a good living,
until his health failed.
As her husband's ability to work
became less and less, Hayward did
her best to keep the family afloat. She
tried to work as a housekeeper for a
local motel, but the work proved more
of a physical challenge than she could
handle. "We were lifting and turning
mattresses, with two workers to a
room," she says. "After about 5 hours,
I nearly passed out."
She also worked several temporary
assignments as a nontechnical medi­cal
worker, caring for elderly adults,
but wasn't able to get enough work to
make ends meet. Finally, after
exhausting their savings, the Hay­wards
applied for food stamps.
A first step
in getting help
Things seemed to fall into place
once Hayward made contact with
E & T counselor Kay Crews. Crews
had recently learned of a program
whose goal is to provide training and
work experience for older Americans.
The program-called AYUDA-will
pay salary costs for up to 20 hours
per week when participants are placed
in training positions with nonprofit or
Food and Nutrition
governmental organizations. AYUDA
is funded through the Salvation Army,
and its ultimate goal is to prepare par­ticipants
for entry into private sector
jobs. Participants must be low-income
and at least 55 years of age.
Crews needed someone to handle
clerical duties for her, and Hayward
seemed like a good candidate. Hay­ward
was thrilled that, in this instance,
her age was an asset rather than a
barrier as it had been when applying
for most other jobs.
Crews is teaching Hayward the
various functions of the job-filing,
maintaining the appointment log, and
keeping thorough records. While she
is in training, Hayward supplements
her income by running a paper route
for the local newspaper.
"She needs a full-time income,"
Crews says, "and I keep this in mind
as I search the community for job
openings-both for Hayward, when
Summer 1988
she is ready, and for my other E & T
clients."
Although the people Crews helps
face many of the same problems in
being unemployed or underemployed,
their circumstances differ. Recognizing
that the same approach will not work
in all cases, the state gives Crews and
her counterparts in other counties con­siderable
flexibility in working with
food stamp participants.
"We've made a real strong commit­ment
to allowing local counselors the
flexibility to deal with clients on an
individual basis," says Paul McTighe,
an administrative officer with the
Department of Human Services' head­quarters
in Oklahoma City.
"Our overall goal is to place clients
into employment through the most
cost-effective means available," he
says. The state sets the parameters
within which to operate, but coun­selors
are not required to use a state­specified
formula.
Kay Crews (left) is food
stamp employment and
training counselor for
Canadian County, Oklahoma.
Above, Crews goes over
work assignments with June
Hayward, whom Crews hired
through a program called
AYUDA.
People's needs and
circumstances assessed
Crews' initial contact with each par­ticipant
includes an assessment of
their strengths and weaknesses. What
jobs have they held? What kinds of
work are they interested in? Is trans­portation
a problem? Will finding
affordable child care be a prerequisite
to working a full-time job? Are there
physical limitations to be considered
or emotional problems to work through
before the participant can be expected
to be a viable job candidate?
Matching the resources needed to
address these peripheral issues is as
important as matching potential job
openings with the appropriate people,
Crews says.
Crews' 13 years of experience with
Oklahoma's Department of Human
Services gives her a broad knowledge
of resources available through the
government, obut she also keeps up to
date on resources available through
7
other avenues within the community.
"A large percentage of our clients
lack a high school education," Crews
says, so many of their referrals are to
GED (Graduate Equivalency Degree)
programs.
Crews also makes other kinds of
referrals. For example, when one cli­ent
kept losing his job because of his
temper, she referred him for therapy.
"He understood he had a problem,"
she says. "He just hadn't done any­thing
to alleviate it."
Then there are some people who
need nothing more than to be told
they have something to offer. "They
are so down on themselves, they
think, 'Why would anybody hire me?'"
Crews uses a lot of positive reinforce­ment
to convince them that qualities
they may consider insignificant can be
tremendous assets. She teaches them
to sell themselves to employers.
Contacting employers
is also important
On Friday of each week, Crews
applies her sales ability in another
direction. She tries to sell area
employers on the E & T program-to
convince them to fill any vacancies
they have with one of her E & T
8
June Hayward is one of nearly 11 ,000
food stamp participants who have found
work through Oklahoma's E & T program
since it began 3 years ago.
participants.
"Educating the employers is really
very important to the success of this
program," Crews says. "Sometimes
the employers' attitude is that they're
not interested in hiring anybody who is
on welfare because they think these
people don't want to work."
One employer voiced this opinion
when Crews visited him, then called
her the next week when his secretary
suddenly quit. "I sent him a secretary
the next day, and he was absolutely
thrilled," Crews says. He has been a
firm supporter ever since.
The results of her contacts with
area employers help fill the job banks
that all E & T counselors are required
to maintain for their participants. "You
essentially have to get out there and
look for a job," Crews says. "The only
difference is that you're looking for it
for someone else."
While officially she devotes 1 day a
week to maintaining the job bank, she
admits that in reality she is on a job
search no matter where she is or what
she is doing.
One Saturday, while Crews was
having a trailer hitch installed on her
car, she provoked a rather curious
look from the mechanic when she
asked about a job.
"Once I told him who I was, he said,
'Well, as a matter of fact, I need a
welder real bad!' And I said, 'I'll send
you someone Monday."' The man she
had in mind had just lost his job as an
oil field welder.
Matching resources
and opportunities
All matches between employers and
participants are not this easy, but
Crews seems to have a knack for
coming up with the right combination
of employment opportunities and
required resources. In one recent
case, the right job and the needed
resource came neatly packaged in
one local employer, a couple, named
Don and Linda Kelley.
The Kelleys, who own a restaurant,
motel, and convenience store, needed
to fill a janitorial position they had
open in their restaurant. They employ
close to 100 people for their three
operations and provide free transpor­tation
to and from work for any of their
employees who want it.
Crews told E & T participant, Phillip
Morlan, about the job. Morlan had
worked as a janitor before, but he had
been unemployed for nearly 3 months
before he came in contact with Crews.
His lack of transportation had been a
severely limiting factor in accepting
jobs.
Morlan walked to the restaurant for
an interview that very afternoon and
started work the next day. "I got pretty
lucky," Morlan said, as his face lit up
with a big smile. "It worked pretty
quick for me. I just hope it works that
well for everybody else."
For more information, contact:
Paul McTighe, Administrative Officer
Oklahoma Department of Human
Services
P.O. Box 25352
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73125
ATTN: Family Support Services
Telephone: (405) 521-4414
article and photos by
C. Kay Blakley
Food and Nutrition
San Diego
Job Club Gives
Valuable Support
And Direction
For 5 years, San Diego County,
California, has been putting food
stamp recipients through a crash
course in the nitty gritty of landing a
job. It's called job club.
The club is specific, hard hitting,
and effective. At the end of 8 days,
the graduates come out recharged,
confident, and, in many cases,
employed. Since the job club began in
1983, 52 percent of its graduates have
found jobs within 3 months of complet­ing
the course.
Job club curriculum is standardized
among five job clubs and concentrates
on interviewing skills. The course
includes 4 days of classroom training
immediately followed by 4 days of
actually soliciting job interviews over
the telephone under the supervision of
job club instructors. The format is
chiefly group instruction with individu­alized
counseling squeezed in as
needed and as possible.
Job club participants benefit from the
enthusiasm of instructors like Randy
Kummer (right). "You've got to show
you're there to help them," he says.
Summer 1988
Developing interviewing
skills is stressed
According to its graduates, much of
the success of the job club is due to
the enthusiasm and commitment of
the instructors. Randy Kummer is an
example.
"Before I can teach them, I have to
reach them," Kummer says. "You've
got to come across with enthusiasm
and convince them that you're not just
another cog in the system, but there
to help them. You've got to mean it,
too, because they can tell."
Each class is different, says Kum­mer,
and classes may need different
approaches. But there are basic sim­ilarities.
For example, interviewing
techniques are always stressed.
"Everything is geared to improving
the way you present yourself in an
interview," says Kummer. "We teach
that if you go in and you really want to
work and you show your enthusiasm,
that attitude will be as important to the
boss as your ability to do the job."
...
9
Like similar job clubs. in other
counties, training includes confidence­building
exercises. "We analyze each
person's marketable skills, work on
goal setting, and talk about the hidden
job market of the positions you don't
see advertised," says Kummer.
"We also do a practice interview on
tape at the beginning of the class and
another one after the training and
compare the two. In between, partici­pants
interview and critique each
other. We ask them whether they'd
hire the person they just interviewed,
and why.
"To sound positive, you have to feel
positive so we work on attitude a lot. I
get people in the club who are very
negative about being here, and I've
got to turn them around.
"I can teach them interviewing skills,
but if they don't change their attitude
it's not going to work. Sometimes I
use the class to apply some peer
group pressure. Some people you
have to nurture along, and some you
really have to challenge. When I need
to, I do a little one-on-one
counseling."
Instructors see
attitudes change
Kummer can see attitudes change
as people become more involved.
"Most people realize this is a real
opportunity and really go after it.
When they start getting positive and
enthusiastic, they start developing
good interviewing skills because they
start paying attention."
Kummer and other instructors give
participants a chance to look at some
of the problems that may be making
getting a job difficult for them.
"A common problem is the 'lan­guage
barrier' between the establish­ment
business managers and the job­seekers
living in the barrios," Kummer
says. "They speak a different
language.
"These people are skilled, intel­ligent,
and very articulate with each
other, but when you put them in an
interview situation, they're literally try­ing
to switch over to speaking the
managers' language.
"To a prospective employer, they
may sound uneducated or ignorant.
They are not. We try to get them to
hear themselves as an employer
would, and then help them practice
10
better ways to sell themselves."
After 4 days of job club, participants
spend 4 days on the phone calling
potential employers to arrange job
interviews.
"At first, they're often kind of nega­tive,"
says Kummer. "They think this
isn't going to work. But when they
start making calls and getting little
bites and interviews, you should see
their eyes light up. All of a sudden,
they're really charging ahead."
Participants have
different skills
One of the challenges of running a
successful job club is being able to
work with participants who have dif­ferent
skills and different levels of
experience in the working world.
According to Kummer, most are not
the "hard core" unemployed, but peo­ple
who have turned to programs like
food stamps for help during a period
of unemployment.
"The people who come to job club
are employable," says Kummer. "They
have skills but need some help land­ing
their next job. That's why we
"Job club got my motivation back up,"
says Yvonne (above). "It rebuilt my spirit
and focused my energy."
stress confidence building and inter­viewing
skills."
People who appear able to find jobs
themselves are assigned to individual
job search, rather than job club, and
people who need basic work experi­ence
are assigned to workfare.
"I think basically job club shortens
the time people need to be on public
aid," says Kummer. "These people
want to find work and we try to accel­erate
the process. When we do, I
think we're doing them a real service."
Yvonne and Homayun are two job
club graduates who found jobs with
some help from Randy Kummer and
his associates.
Yvonne is young, ambitious, and
had worked steadily for 8 years. She
was shocked when she was laid off
last fall and surprised at how quickly
she went into a tailspin when her ini­tial
job-hunting wasn't successful.
She lost her confidence and her
motivation and began to feel her world
contracting to the four walls of her
home. She applied for food stamps to
help keep food on the table while she
Food and Nutrition
This man, like Yvonne, learned helpful
interviewing skills in Randy Kummer's job
club class.
returned to school and was assigned
to job club.
Job club helped
in several ways
"I'm the kind of person who needs a
push now and then," she says.
"That's what job club did for me. I've
always worked, and I'd worked for that
company for 2-1 /2 years. I still can't
believe I was laid off.
"At first, I laughed it off and took a
vacation-my first one. Then I went on
some job interviews and got some
'no's.' Pretty soon I started finding
excuses to not job hunt, like I didn't
have the right dress to wear, or it was
too late in the day to start. I began
sleeping in.
"My confidence went down and it
got to where I just couldn't get up and
go look for a job. The world was pass­ing
me by.
"Job club got my motivation back
up. It rebuilt my spirit and focused my
energy. Our instructor had a genuine
interest in us as people, and it
showed. He really wanted us to get
jobs, and that made us want to get
Summer 1988
jobs. He believed in us so much, it
made us believe in ourselves again.
"When we started to make phone
calls for interviews, I didn't think it
would work. The first phone call I
made, I was surprised when they gave
me an appointment for the next day.
They hired me the next week."
A few months after Yvonne got her
first job, she heard about a better job.
With job club help, she made a
resume and won her present job doing
word processing and data entry for an
architectural firm. Still drawing on job
club advice, Yvonne is looking for still
other opportunities.
"I'm back to my old self again, and
life is going a lot better for me. I'm
happier when I'm working."
Emotional support
makes a difference
Homayun, like Yvonne, is a recent
job club graduate who has achieved
his goal of landing a good job. When
he lost his job last August, he became
demoralized very quickly. He feels job
club gave him important emotional
support when he needed it.
"After you've been looking for work
for a while," he says, "you start
expecting people to turn you down.
Job club gave me back my self­esteem,
my confidence, and my ability
to work.
"I had some job skills but the club
provided a sort of moral support,
group therapy. You talk about prob­lems
you've had, and they offer sug­gestions
and encouragement. It's
basic networking, being around others
in the same situation and helping each
other.
"After job club, I took the initiative to
take the county general placement
test, and I got some interviews. The
first few were pretty shaky, so I
reached back and drew on my job
club experience. I kept in contact with
my job club instructor and followed his
advice.
"For example, I began researching
my potential employers. I found out
something about the department, the
job, the mission, how the department
functions. I pictured myself in the posi­tion.
I was prepared when I inter­viewed
for this job, and I got it.
"I'm going back to college this sum­mer
to begin work on a 4-year degree
in accounting, which I'll use to
advance in the department. This is my
way of giving back to the county and
the community for what they have
given me."
Randy Kummer and other job club
instructors get a lot of satisfaction in
seeing people like Homayun get their
lives back on track.
"I like seeing
those smiles"
"This is the best job I've had," Kum­mer
says. "I want to do something to
help people and I can do that here. I
turn people around. I see people
change. Some pat me on the back
after class. Some come back after
they find work and hug me. I like
seeing those smiles."
For more information on San
Diego's job club, contact:
Aleta Wilkerson
San Diego County Social Services
7949 Mission Center Court
San Diego, California 921 08
Telephone: (619) 531-4808
article and photos
by Tino Serrano
11
LaS Vegas
Word Is Getting Out
That The "A-Team"
Gets Results
Ley've been dubbed the "A-Team"
and, like their television namesakes,
they are committed to doing whatever
it takes to help people with problems.
Working out of the Las Vegas wel­fare
office, their mission is to help
food stamp and welfare recipients get
jobs. Officially known as the Employ­ment
and Training Service Unit, the
"team" consists of five employment
12
specialists, one employment coun­selor,
and a unit and a field
supervisor.
Although their techniques are more
subtle than the brawn of Mr. 'T' and
more direct than the intricate plotting
of the Colonel, like the t.v. "A-Team"
they take a personal interest in the
people they help.
Take, for example, the case of June
Craig, a young single parent receiving
food stamps and AFDC (Aid to Fam­ilies
with Dependent Children), and
working for minimum wage at a deli.
She had 3 years of college and had
recently completed a business school
course on computers. For nearly a
year, June had unsuccessfully
searched for a job where she could
use her training. When she finally
turned to the E & T service unit, she
was discouraged. "It seemed like
no one would give me a chance,"
she says.
"She was motivated and had all the
qualifications," says · employment spe­cialist
Linda Sims. "All she needed
was some job seeking guidance and a
lot of moral support."
Counseling makes
possibilities clearer
Sims counseled June on interview­ing
techniques, helped her prepare a
resume, and recommended employers
most likely to need her skills. Then
she began arranging job interviews.
As often happens in the tightly knit
Food and Nutrition
Las Vegas office, Sims heard about a
job opening in an appliance store from
a co-worker in another department.
"It seemed ideal for June," Sims
says. "It was doing some data entry,
accounts receivable, and clerical work.
But she was going to have to work to
land the job." After four tough inter­views,
and bolstered by Sims' steady
encouragement, June got the job.
But not all of the E & T service
unit's participants are as job ready or
motivated as June.
Cheryl Cornwell is the lone employ­ment
counselor in the E & T service
unit. She sets up and teaches a
weekly 2-day job search workshop for
food stamp participants who are not
job ready, and two followup work­shops
for those still having trouble
finding jobs.
She also works with food stamp
recipients who have prison records,
emotional problems, or have had drug,
alcohol, or other problems that make
finding and keeping a job difficult.
''Most of my clients have been
employed," Cornwell says. "They just
haven't been employed for very long.
In my 7 years in welfare work, I've
found that most people can get a job,
but they can't keep it. Stressing job­keeping
skills is a big part of my
workshops."
Cornwell prefers to be known as a
teacher rather than a counselor.
Although she had taken courses in
counseling before joining the E & T
team, she had never worked as a
counselor.
"They said the job was more an
education job than a counseling job
and that's why I took it. I like to teach.
These are hard students," she adds.
"Sometimes it's like teaching a special
education class. But they need some­one
to care whether they are doing
anything or not."
When Cornwell started teaching the
job search workshops, she encoun­tered
some resistance. She recalls
one woman who stood up during a
June Craig (opposite page) and Lana
Lanahan (right) are two of the many
people who have been helped to find
jobs through the work of Las Vegas'
"A-Team," formed in 1987.
Summer 1988
workshop and in a very loud voice
said, "I don't know what this has to do
with food stamps." At the end of the
session, she stood up again and said,
"You know, I didn't know why I had to
be here, but I'm glad I came."
Cornwell feels that resistance to
attending even the mandatory work­shops
is fading. "Word is getting out
that we can help them make it on their
own," she says.
Unit combined
several programs
The Las Vegas service unit was
formed in February 1987. "What we
did," says Vince Fallon, Las Vegas
district office manager, "was to con­solidate
all of the state's job search
and training resources into one unit to
better serve the clients and bring all of
our resources to bear on the problem
of putting people to work."
According to Fallon, five programs­Community
Work Experience, WIN,
Title 20 Employment, Refugee
Employment, and the Food Stamp
Employment and Training Program­went
into the Employment and Train­ing
Services Unit.
The "A-Team" staff realize that sim­ply
requiring people to actively seek
employment is not going to put every­one
to work. For some, additional
education or training is needed. Oth­ers
need work experience.
Lana Lanahan is one E & T partici­pant
who needed help in sharpening
her work skills and lining up a job
where she could use them. Lanahan
had worked in an office before her
baby was born. When divorce sharply
reduced her family income, she turned
to food stamps and AFDC.
Occasionally, she found work in fast
food restaurants at minimum wage. It
had been 5 years since she worked in
an office, and although sbe looked
long and hard, she had no recent job
experience to recommend her to
would-be employers.
Through a friend, she heard about
the people at the E & T service unit
and went to them with her problem.
Within a few days, Lana was enrolled
in a federally funded program called
..
13
the Community Work Experience Pro­gram.
She was put to work at a wel­fare
office near her !lome to hone her
office skills. •
Fortunately, a few days before her
3-month work experience program
ended, an administrative assistant job
opened up and she was hired full
time. Now, part of her job is to staff
the information desk where she
encourages food stamp applicants
with her personal success story.
Staff actively
seek opportunities
Counseling, encouraging, and pre­paring
people for jobs is only part of
what the E & T service unit does.
Actively seeking and recruiting poten­tial
employers and gaining community
and institutional support are also high
priorities.
"We deal with two types of clients,"
says Liliam Hickey, field supervisor of
the E & T service unit. "Those who
need training or education, and those
who are ready to work right now."
Hickey is responsible for locating
and negotiating with potential public
and private sector employers and
those who can help train or educate
food stamp and welfare recipients. A
welfare worker for the past 17 years,
Hickey typifies the enthusiasm for the
work of the E & T service unit. "It's
the most rewarding job I've ever had,"
she says.
Working with business and civic
leaders, Liliam and other "A-Team"
staff have convinced a number of local
businesses that they can supply good,
dependable workers.
Through their work in the com­munity,
more than 40 different kinds of
contractors have been signed up as
employers and providers of training
and job experience opportunities.
These include government agen­cies,
small and large businesses,
institutions, and civic groups and orga­nizations.
In addition, they have
worked to eliminate some of the bar­riers
to employment often faced by
low-income job seekers.
For example, when the Las Vegas
Employment and Training Office was
first established, one of Hickey's first
contacts was with Las Vegas' large
Culinary Union.
She managed not only to convince
14
union officials that the E & T service
unit could supply the permanent and
part-time workers they needed, but
also negotiated a waiver of the initial
union fee which had often prevented
low-income clients from being placed
in jobs by the union in the past.
Since that initial success with the
Culinary Union, and based on estab­lishing
a good track record of depend­able
workers, Hickey has negotiated
similar agreements with the Bar­tenders
and Teamsters Unions.
Sometimes people
need added help
"Often it is a small thing that will
keep a food stamp or welfare recipient
from gainful employment," Hickey
says. "Things like a uniform, tools,
and even transportation can be diffi­cult
for low-income people to come
up with."
Hickey has successfully talked
transportation officials into giving dis­counted
bus passes for participants
needing transportation to seek
employment or to get a job.
All of Las Vegas' thrift shops have
agreed to donate uniforms necessary
for jobs in many hotels and casinos,
and even suitable clothing for work or
job interviews. Other E & T service
unit staff have helped participants with
makeup and grooming tips, and others
have solicited donations of tools and
utensils from local businesses.
"Recently," Hickey says, "a client of
ours needed a hospital uniform so she
could begin work. I went to a local
hospital and talked to some of the
nurses. They went through their
lockers and now we have a pretty
good supply of uniforms for hospital
workers."
For those participants not yet ready
for the job market, the E & T service
unit has made arrangements with the
school district's adult education pro­gram
to provide free technical and
educational classes. To insure that the
people to be trained are qualified to
take the courses, the school district
visits the welfare office each month to
test the would-be students.
E & T service staff have arranged
tuition-free typing classes ranging in
length from 6 months to 1 year; a
medical terminology class; two nurses
aide programs; and several year-long
courses which are enabling a number
of people to get their GED's (Graduate
Equivalency Degrees).
Hickey feels one of her most suc­cessful
efforts was a recent training
class she arranged in conjunction with
the Welfare Department and the Las
Vegas Professional Black Women's
Alliance.
Periodically, the U.S. Postal Service
conducts a test which they use to
develop a register from which they
hire workers. In cooperation with the
Welfare Department and the Profes­sional
Black Women's Alliance, the
E & T service unit conducted a class
to train participants on taking the fed­eral
test.
"We trained 49 people," Hickey
says. "We hope we can get several of
our people on that register. Those are
good jobs."
Team recognized
for its success
According to Vince Fallon, the
"A-Team" has been successful be­cause
of the enthusiasm and motiva­tion
everyone has had for the program
since its inception.
"We had the will and the spirit to do
creative and innovative things and we
have successfully passed that on to
our clients and the community. It is an
enthusiasm for the whole concept of
employment and training and an
enthusiasm in support of our clients.
"We won't give up on them," he
adds. "We keep after them to believe
in themselves."
Fallon, who came up with the
"A-Team" nickname when the unit
was established, feels that it is very
descriptive of their work and their
attitude.
"They accomplish difficult things,"
he says, "by being creative, innova­tive,
and enthusiastic. They won't take
no for an answer. They simply get the
job done. That's my A-Team."
For more information, contact:
Vince Fallon, District Office Manager
State Department of Human
Resources, Welfare Division
700 Belrose Street-State Mail
Las Vegas, Nevada 89158
Telephone: (702) 486-5031
article and photos
by Dick Montoya
Food and Nutrition
Delaware
Project Managers
Stress Self-Esteem
And Responsibility
Irs not hard for Rebecca Varella to
feel compassion for the food stamp
and welfare recipients she works with
at Delaware's Department of Health
and Social Services. The successful
30-year-old state manager was raised
on welfare.
"When you hit an obstacle, it's so
easy to say, that's it, I'm not going
through this," says the soft-spoken
Varella. "I was fortunate. I had a lot of
people in my life who talked to me
about building my strength."
A graduate of the University of
Rhode Island, Varella heads the Dela­ware
Department of Health and Social
Services' program called ''The First
Step." The program is helping food
stamp and welfare recipients decrease
their dependence on assistance pro­grams
by building their skills to pursue
meaningful employment.
Varella and her staff of four case
managers interview the food stamp
and welfare recipients who are
required to enroll in the employment
and training program mandated
nationwide by P.L. 99-198. Together
they design individualized training
plans that are based on each partici­pant's
academic level and skills.
Serve participants
throughout the state
The participants in the program­which
is partially funded by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture's Food and
Nutrition Service (FNS)-are learning
to write resumes and fill out job
Rebecca Varella (top) is proud of what
'The First Step" program is accomplishing.
Pictured below is a job search class at
West End Neighborhood House in
Wilmington, one of six community-based
agencies operating the program.
Summer 1988
applications at six community-based
agencies throughout the state.
Others who have job search skills
are attending vocational schools
where they are studying such things
as nursing, retail management, food
service, and data entry.
Varella draws on her own welfare
experiences to personalize "The
First Step" program, which began in
April 1987.
"I relate back to my own experi­ences
and what I needed to keep me
moving," says Varella. What she
needed, she remembers, was support,
encouragement, and a boost to her
self-esteem.
Staff emphasize
people's strengths
The state staff and community­based
agency personnel know that
self-esteem plays a key role in making
someone employable. To motivate
participants and to build their self­esteem,
the staff highlight their
strengths.
"You can provide all the information
you can," says Varella: ''You can go
over resumes and tell a person how to
dress. But if he doesn't feel good
about himself, then he'll blow the
interview."
In one exercise designed to rebuild
confidence, program participants are
asked to look closely at the hard times
they have survived and to imagine
what they could do in good times.
Once participants' self-esteem has
improved, case managers talk to them
about goals. They help them under­stand
that progress sometimes means
taking one step at a time.
"We can't let the participants experi­ence
failure," says Varella. "If we do,
we'll lose them. When a participant
sets up a goal, for example, to
increase his English level by two
grades and he only moves one grade,
we want him to understand there are
different levels of improvement. We
constantly work with participants until
they feel good about themselves."
In addition to building confidence,
the Delaware program also stresses
taking responsibility for one's own life.
Looking back at her experience with
public aid, Varella says welfare didn't
instill a sense of responsibility. That
came, she says, from people who
encouraged her to accept
responsibility.
Similarly, participants in "The First
Step" have to meet certain obliga­tions.
For example, they are required
to attend classes, and there are penal­ties
if they do not. After several unex­cused
absences from class, a
participant can be ineligible for food
stamp benefits for 2 months.
"I'm not a very conservative per­son,"
says Varella, "but I do believe
that if you're providing the support and
services people need to develop their
potential, then they have a respon­sibility
to go forth with that."
Initial resistance
usually doesn't last
As with anything else, when people
are required to do something, they
tend initially to be a little resentful. The
employment and training participants
are no exception to the rule, but the
case managers and staff at the com­munity
centers do their best to ease
the situation.
"Once the clients come in and see
the staff, they start to feel good about
16
being involved in the program,"
Varella says. "The staff really enjoy
working with people. It's not just a job
to them. It's in their hearts."
Program participants learn quickly
that attending class has its merits
because it's leading them to some
new opportunities.
"We are the first step, and that's the
hardest step to take," Varella says.
"We tell the clients that once they take
that step, the sky's the limit."
One participant, after taking the
classes last spring, said, "I don't like
to be told that I have to do something,
but after being in the program, I real­ized
my teacher was showing me a
direction I wanted to find."
Another young woman, who
dropped out of school in the tenth
grade, said the program was helping
her bring up her math level. "I didn't
want to come, but I'm happy I did,"
she said.
"I've improved three grade
and I'd like to go to college," said
another.
It takes the program's welfare recip­ients,
on average, 6 months to
advance one grade level. "We have
some people who can move quickly,
and we have others who we'll have to
train for a longer period of time,"
Varella says.
Staff pleased with
support and results
Despite the reality of serving people
who are hard to employ, however, the
program is accomplishing its goals.
The Department of Health and
Social Services projects that by Sep­tember
1988, 1 ,800 food stamp and
welfare recipients will be enrolled in
various component activities. About
600 of these people will be employed.
Varella attributes these successes
to the attitudes of the program staff
and the support given by Delaware
Governor Michael Castle.
"Your program is only going to be
as good as the support from the upper
level of administration," says Varella.
"If you can get the support, then you
can do your job. We've been
fortunate."
So have the public assistance recip­ients
who Varella says society calls
"the rejected few." 'They're finally
being accepted," she says enthusi­astically.
" It's a concern of mine to
see that they remain a high priority.
"Our systems pretty much encour­aged
people not to move forward.
We're finally doing what the system
was supposed to do."
For more information, contact:
Rebecca Varella
Chief Employment and Training
Administrator
Health and Social Services
Division of Economic Services
P.O. Box 906
New Castle, Delaware 19720
Telephone: (302) 421-6310
... Better Buying
Skills Help
Fatnilies Save
Helping people help themselves is
what the Extension Service's
Expanded Food and Nutrition Educa­tion
Program (EFNEP) is all about.
For more than 20 years, EFNEP
has been teaching low-income home­makers
how to get the most nutrition
for their food dollars. Specially trained
paraprofessional nutrition assistants,
hired from low-income communities,
work one-on-one with homemakers to
improve their meal planning, purchas­ing,
and food preparation skills.
Cheyenne, Wyoming, is one area
where EFNEP is thriving after experi­encing
some earlier problems. During
the past 4 years, the percent of home­makers
enrolling and completing the
EFNEP course in Laramie County,
where Cheyenne is located, has risen
· from a low of 9 percent to 48 percent.
What the county staff have learned in
strengthening their program may be
useful for others providing nutrition
counseling and food buying help to
low-income families.
Made courses shorter
and more concentrated
Initially, Wyoming nutrition assist­ants
met with homemakers on a
monthly basis and taught 20 different
subjects, one each month. They
learned that homemakers lost interest
anywhere from 6 to 9 months into the
training. They remedied the problem
by consolidating 20 lessons into 12
and meeting with homemakers
weekly.
Along with the new lessons for
homemakers, Wyoming Cooperative
Extension nutritionists also made
18
changes in the training they gave their
nutrition assistants, who had pre­viously
been discouraged by high
dropout rates of EFNEP participants
and were quitting their jobs.
With better training, clearer goals for
assistants, and bi-monthly sessions to
discuss mutual problems, teaching
techniques, and strategies, the num­ber
of assistants quitting dropped dra­matically
while the number of
homemakers completing the lessons
spiralled upwards.
The experience of a young airman's
wife, who recently completed the
revamped Wyoming EFNEP course, is
typical of how far the program has
come.
The woman had originally sought
food assistance for her baby at a local
WIC clinic. While there, she had a
short interview with a nutrition assist­ant
from the University of Wyoming
Cooperative Extension Service and
received help in another area she was
struggling with: purchasing enough
food on a limited budget to meet her
growing family's needs.
Although the nutrition assistant had
much more in mind than saving the
family money on its grocery bills, she
knew that promise was often effective
in persuading young mothers to join
EFNEP.
The woman did join the program,
and the shopping skills she learned in
the initial lessons did make a dif­ference.
Her grocery bill shrank $50 a
month, even though she was buying
more than before.
She also learned how to plan
healthier meals. Since the woman's
husband had a cholesterol problem,
the nutrition assistant focused on what
food the family was eating and how it
was prepared. After the discussions,
the couple agreed to try new foods
and prepare them in ways to eliminate
excess tat.
Using several USDA publications on
how to buy and serve nutritious low­cost
meals, the wife gained more
knowledge of food values, caloric
intake, nutrients, and menu planning.
Her EFNEP session reinforced those
ideas. The dietary changes not only
helped her husband lose weight but
also relieved symptoms of an ulcer
that had been bothering him for some
time.
Lessons stress
careful shopping
The impact of EFNEP usually is felt
immediately by homemakers enrolled
in the program. During their first
lesson, they complete a survey form
on their shopping habits. They learn
that most shopping practices are com­mon
sense, but it shoppers are not
well organized, well informed, and
attuned to finding bargains, they usu­ally
spend far more money than nec­essary
to teed their families.
Homemakers are urged to plan
menus before shopping. Sticking to a
grocery list is a must. They learn to
compare unit prices; look tor store and
generic brands offering comparable
quality; buy day-old or reduced-price
bread; keep written records of how
much they spend tor food; avoid
unnecessary trips to the store; check
dates tor freshness to avoid waste;
Food and Nutrition
State EFNEP coordinator Linda Melcher
(standing) holds monthly sessions with
nutrition assistants.
buy sale items; shop alone, if possi­ble;
and, if storage is not a problem,
buy in quantity and repackage items
into smaller portions at home.
The program is geared to helping
WIC and food stamp participants help
themselves long after they have com­pleted
the 12-week course. Subse­quent
sessions deal with distin­guishing
between wants and needs.
Participants, for instance, may want
to purchase potato chips. After looking
at the cost of a large bag of chips
versus 1 0 pounds of potatoes and
comparing nutrients and number of
servings, they realize the processed
product is far more expensive and
less nutritious.
Another session deals with menu
planning and involves studying the
major food groups. Lessons are subtly
repetitious, reinforcing key ideas that
reshape homemakers' food planning,
buying, handling, and preparation
habits.
Reaching people
with valuable help
Although the Wyoming EFNEP
effort is limited to the Cowboy State's
four most populous counties, over
2,000 families have been involved in
the program during the past 5 years.
Followup studies conducted in three
counties among 460 homemakers
indicate EFNEP is working. While the
nutritional value of meals served has
gone up, grocery bills have dropped
an average of 10 percent. Among 315
families, EFNEP nutritionists estimate
annual grocery savings of nearly
$80,000.
Recently, the Wyoming program
expanded to include Fremont County,
which encompasses most of the Wind
River Indian Reservation. Nutrition
assistants will work with food distribu­tion
program participants to improve
their use of USDA commodities and
food handling practices. They will also
work with WIC and food stamp
participants.
Despite limited staff, Wyoming
EFNEP has shown a growing capacity
to do an effective job in teaching low­income
people valuable skills.
The wife of a Wyoming Air Force
enlisted man has reason to beam
after completing the 12-lesson EFNEP
course. She's feeding her family more
nutritious meals and saving $50 a
month in the process.
For more information, contact: ·
Linda Melcher, EFNEP Coordinator
Cooperative Extension Service
University of Wyoming
P.O. Box 3354
Laramie, Wyoming 802071
Telephone: (307) 766-5181
article and photos
by Craig Forman
..
WORC Reaches
Out With Jobs
And Trainin
Lou Gifford hadn't worked since
1972. She was on AFDC (Aid to Fam­ilies
with Dependent Children) and
food stamps. She had worked in a
sewing factory and a state hospital for
the mentally retarded before she mar­ried.
Now divorced, she is the mother
of a 1 0-year-old daughter.
"I was desperate," Gifford says. "I
couldn't see living on food stamps for
the rest of my life. I couldn't see being
accountable to others forever."
Gifford saw a poster for the Wash­Prlgton
(Pennsylvania) Outreach
Retraining Center (WORC) when she
was in a welfare office. Seeing that
poster, and acting on it, has changed
her life.
Gifford called WORC and the cen­ter's
director, Joyce Blackburn, took
her under her wing. Like all students
who enroll in WORC's workshops,
Gifford wanted to do something with
her life but didn't know how to break
the vicious cycle she was caught in.
Gifford is now a drafting student at
Washington Institute of Technology.
She works part-time for civil engi­neers,
looks forward to getting an
associate's degree in January 1989
and working full-time in the drafting
field.
Finding paths
out of welfare
WORC's goal is to help home­makers,
like Lou Gifford, join the work­k>
rce. An economic development
program started in 1984 by Pennsyl­vania's
California University, WORC
provides practical help in a variety
of ways.
20
In addition to what are called
"Employability Workshops," the center
offers financial help with training pro­grams
and continuing education.
WORC staff act as a support network
as students go through training pro­grams
and beyond. They also offer
occasional workshops in math skills,
home-based businesses, and job
search.
According to Blackburn, WORC's
students are single parents and dis­placed
homemakers. Displaced home­makers,
she explains, are people who
are widowed, divorced, or have a dis-abled
spouse. Most have no job or
training experience. Although geared
toward women, a few men who are
single parents have taken advantage
of the program.
"We try to get people out of the wel­fare
system," says Blackburn. "Wel­fare
agencies refer people to us."
Although statistics are incomplete, at
least 29 percent of the students in
1987 were on food stamps. Blackburn
says that at one point 9 of 11 students
then attending a workshop had been
on food stamps at some time. Some
participants are WIC mothers.
Food and Nutrition
Services provided
free to participants
WORC tries to help students in as
many ways as possible. There are no
fees-workshops and everything
attached are free. The center also
helps with some of the personal costs
associated with the training.
For example, WORC provides for
child care while mothers attend work­shops.
The majority of students have
school-age children, but for those with
preschoolers, Blackburn finds licensed
day care that takes the children for 5
weeks.
WORC also helps with some trans­portation
costs. "Transportation can
be a real problem," says Blackburn.
At a WORC workshop {below and
opposite page), director Joyce Blackburn
(far right) talks with a group of students.
Most are single mothers, or women who
are widowed, divorced, or have a
disabled spouse.
Summer 1988
Washington is the county seat, but
only has a population of 23,000 peo­ple.
It is a mining area, basically rural
and very depressed. There is public
transportation only within the center
city.
WORC's funding allows them to pay
for public transportation. "We have a
couple of women who walk 1-1/2
miles and more to get a bus to come
here," says Blackburn.
The women's determination to get
to the center is characteristic of the
commitment of WORC participants.
It's also reflected in the center's suc­cess
rate, which Blackburn feels is
high.
In 1987, WORC had 89 people in its
workshops. Some 29 of them are now
employed and 25 are in training pro­grams.
The others, Blackburn says,
are still looking, have decided they
aren't ready yet, or want to start train­ing
when their children are older.
Workshops run
for 5 weeks
WORC's employability skills work­shops
have 1 0 or so students in each
and run for 5 weeks. In all, students
get 120 hours of vocational guidance,
ranging from how to assess job skills
and begin a job search to goal setting,
clarifying values, and managing
stress.
A large part of what WORC does is
build self-confidence and self-esteem.
Blackburn says her students have
trouble finding out what they want to
do because they have never worked
outside the home. "Many," she says,
"have low self-esteem and feel like
failures."
Lou Gifford gained much from talk­ing
with other single parents at the
workshops. "I got insights into prob­lems
I was having at home," she
says. Participating in WORC activities
also gave her insights into the working
world. "It gave me the opportunity to
find out about different kinds of
occupations and who was hiring in
these areas," she says.
21
.•
As part of the workshops, Blackburn
enlists the help of professionals, who
explain opportunities in their various
fields. Some come from government
agencies, others from the private
sector.
Gifford remembers the tour she took
of Washington Institute of Technology.
"The drafting department fascinated
me," she recalls. " It was quiet, and
they worked at their own pace. That's
when I decided what I wanted to do.
It's nice to know what you want to do
with your life."
Once a student completes the
5-week workshop, ideally she goes on
to a training program or the job mar­ket.
WORC has funds for training, as
long as it is vocational and no longer
than 2 years.
"We promote some nontraditional
jobs, like construction, drafting, and
robotics, although most of our stu­dents
still go into the usual fields­health
care and business," Blackburn
says.
WORC is one of
several programs
WORC is not alone in its efforts to
reach out to single parents and home­makers
who want to get into the job
market. WORC and 50 similar pro­grams
are funded through the Penn­sylvania
Department of Education's
Bureau of Vocational Education.
For fiscal year 1988, Pennsylvania
is spending $800,000 on these pro­grams.
The state also receives federal
funds from the U.S. Department of
Education.
According to AI Marra, budget
officer for the U.S. Department of
Education's Office of Vocational and
Adult Education (OVAE), $63.1 million
in federal funds are going to states for
similar activities in 1988.
Nationwide, according to Marra,
these basic state grants are used in a
variety of ways to best serve individ­uals
in each state. Marra says that for
each $1 .00 of federal money, state
and local entities are matching that
with $10 of their own to help people
gain job skills.
Jane Adair, program specialist at
OVAE, says these are exciting times,
with a new emphasis on helping peo­ple
in need make positive changes in
their lives.
"Although it's a challenge to find the
funds for such basic and necessary
needs as child care and transportation
for these people-both on a national
and a local level-we're giving people
the opportunity to get off welfare for
good, to learn marketable skills and
be self -sufficient."
For more information, contact:
Joyce Blackburn
Washington Outreach Retraining
Center
YWCA, Room 23
42 West Maiden Street
Washington, Pennsylvania 15301
Telephone: (412) 223-4305
article by Linda Feldman
photos by Joe Dunphy
WORCWorks ...
For: Lou Gifford
Gifford is a single parent living in
Canonsbum, Pennsylvania. After h!Qh
school, she worked in a sewing fac·
tory, a state hospital for the mentally
Ill, and sold Avon products. When she
came to WORC for a workshop in
1987, she had not worked since 1972.
She was on AFDC and food stamp~.;;;<}:t,·~,;:.;;.;
WORC helped get her into a
Partnership Act (JTPA) program.
JTPA is paying for Gifford to get an
associate's degree in drafting. She
gets $6.00 a day for expenses like
transportation. She works part-time
with a civil engineering firm. Gifford
says, "WORC really changed my
thinking."
pension
cleaned a :few .. hGI~sei&
time, to get out
enjoyed cleaning.
Markish, living atone,
dren grown, saw a WORC m a
doctor's office. She was there to treat
stress. Markish went through a WORC
workshop last year. Today she owns
Classic Cleaning Service and employs
two people. They clean 18 houses in
the Washington, Pennsylvania, area,
and the business is gr~wing steadily.
"I was a really unhappy person and
didn't know it," says Markish. "Today,
I feel good about myself. I call the
shots."
4
...
WORCWorks ...
For: Sharon Bruno
Bruno is married and has four high­school-
age children. Her husband, a
former mechanic at a used car lot, has
been laid off for a couple of years.
After seeing a brochure for WORC
last year, Bruno decided to check it
out. She stuck with the program, then
trained to be a nursing assistant.
Today, she works part-time at the
Horizon Senior Care Center in Can­onsburg,
Pennsylvania.
She works on a floor where
residents need constant care. She is
on 24-hour call. She says, "I learned I
could be more than just a housewife. I
learned to have confidence in myself,
which I didn't have before. That was
the main thing-confidence."
Food and N i ·o
Special School
Gives Teen
Mothers A Chance
Many of them are children them­selves,
some as young as 12, others
as "old" as 19. What they have in
common is they attend the Polly
McCabe School in New Haven, Con­necticut,
and they are pregnant.
Teenage pregnancy is a national
problem of growing concern. Teens
deliver one out of six babies born in
this country, and the majority choose
to keep their babies. In New Haven,
one out of five births are to teens
under age 19, and in the "Hill" area of
the city, one out of four births are to
teens.
It is in the Hill district, a 3-mile area
of extreme poverty, that the Polly
McCabe School and the Hill Health
Center (HHC) are working together to
help teen mothers build better futures
for themselves and their children.
Helping teens
stay in school
"The primary purpose of McCabe is
to prevent pregnant teens from drop­ping
out of school," says Elizabeth
Celotto, McCabe principal. "Teen par­enthood
limits a young woman's
chances of leading a socially and
economically independent and produc­tive
life."
The cost of teen parenthood is high
not only to the teens but also to their
At New Haven's Hill Health Center, a
staff member talks with a McCabe
student (left) about the WIC program.
Through WIC, the girl receives special
supplemental foods and nutrition
education.
Summer 1988 25
children and to society. The statistics
are bleak:
• Only half of the teens who
become parents before age 18 gradu­ate
from high school.
• Forty percent of teenage girls who
drop out of school do so because of
pregnancy or marriage.
• Teen mothers are twice as likely
to be poor as other mothers, and teen
parents earn half the lifetime earnings
of women who wait until age 20 to
have their first child.
"With a lot of help from other agen­cies
and a very dedicated staff, we're
working to increase the potential of
these students," says Celotto.
An average of 200 girls attend the
school each year and well below 1 0
percent drop out. Equally impressive
is a repeat pregnancy rate of only
8 percent, with this year's rate running
a low 6 percent.
"Our secondary goal," says Celotto,
"is to help the teens deliver healthy
babies." Here, too, the school is meet­ing
its goal. In a poverty area where
low birthweight is a serious problem,
McCabe students tend to have babies
whose average birthweights are
26
S1/2 pounds or more.
Supportive atmosphere
helps in many ways
At the core of each of these suc­cesses
is the supportive atmosphere
fostered by both the Hill Health Center
and McCabe. "The girls are very sup­portive
of each other, and the staff is
very supportive of the girls," says
Celotto.
"Sometimes we take a lot of crit­icism
from people on the outside who
say we are giving them too much. But
the problem is there, and I think the
best way to deal with it is to be under­standing
and not judgmental."
The school, established in 1966 and
named after a New Haven woman
who dedicated her life to serving
young women, is operated by the New
Haven school system in conjunction
with community agencies.
McCabe offers accredited academic
courses in grades 6-12. The girls
attend the school during pregnancy
and are expected to return to their
regular schools after giving birth.
At McCabe, the girls take the
courses they would have taken in reg-
Hill Health Center WIG staff work closely
with McCabe students and teachers.
Here, WIG nutritionist Melissa Smith
presents a class on nutrition during a
visit to the school.
ular school plus a mandatory life skills
class, which, in addition to preparing
them for delivery, also covers a wide
range of topics, including nutrition,
parenting, and being a family
manager.
"It is the best job I've ever had,"
says Adair Luciani, life skills teacher.
"I'm teaching them something they
need to know right now." Frequently,
Luciani uses guest speakers from
various community agencies to make
her students aware of the help that is
available to them and to address indi­vidual
concerns.
Luciani has three main goals for her
students. First, to have a good labor
and delivery experience. She practices
LaMaze exercises with them weekly.
"Many of the girls are frightened by
the delivery process and are worried
they won't be able handle it, but many
Food and Nutrition
come back after giving birth and say
the exercises helped, which is very
satisfying."
Luciani 's second goal is to help the
girls avoid repeat pregnancies. She
emphasizes birth control and assertive
behavior, but admits it is a hard mes­sage
to deliver. "Society encourages
sex in everything the girls see and
hear," Luciani says. But the school's
6-percent repeat pregnancy rate indi­cates
that the message is getting
through.
Luciani's third goal is to increase
the girls' confidence in their mothering
abilities, which she hopes will
ultimately prevent child abuse. "I let
them see that there just isn't one right
way to do things. I help them see that
they have the ability to be good
mothers."
Comments from current students
reflect how vital McCabe's supportive
Summer 1988
atmosphere is to them. "It is easier to
make friends here because we are all
here for the same reason," one girl
says. "It is better than regular school,"
says another. "You're nobody there.
Here, the teachers care about you and
help you."
A former student says, "The reason
I came back to school is because
everyone thinks if you have a baby
you won't finish school. In my case, I
wanted to prove to people that I could
do it."
Upon their return to regular school,
the girls are required to take a parent­ing
class for which they are given aca­demic
credit. Additionally, each school
has an advisor who sees the girls reg­ularly
to ensure a smooth transition.
The advisor helps with any problems
the girls encounter and acts as a
buffer between the students and
administration, if necessary.
WIC and health
services available
Adjacent to McCabe is the Hill
Health Center. Entering its twentieth
year, the community-run center
provides health care to low-income
people.
"The community is oriented to com­ing
here for help of any kind," says
one outreach worker. "It is often the
first place people come when things
start falling apart for them." It is the
same caring atmosphere that contrib­utes
to the successful relationships
between the center's health service
programs and McCabe.
On-site services include nutrition,
obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics,
dental care, and mental health serv­ices,
all of which are available to
McCabe students. Two programs, the
Special Supplemental Food Program
for Women, Infants, and Children
(WIG) and the Young Parents Out-
WIC director Francesca Verda (left) is
pleased with the close coordination
between McCabe and the Hill Health
Center. When students enroll in McCabe,
they are also enrolled in WIC.
.. 27
reach Program (YPOP), ~ lay a special
role in helping"t he teen mothers.
"WIG has been successful because
it has been able to catch the teens
early in their pregnancies through the
excellent referral system we have
between programs," says WIG director
Francesca Verda.
The WIG staff work closely with
McCabe. When a student enrolls in
McCabe, she is also enrolled in WIG.
Through WIG, which is administered
cooperatively by USDA's Food and
Nutrition Service and state and local
health agencies, the young women get
individually prescribed supplemental
foods and nutrition counseling.
The WIG staff provide McCabe
teachers with nutrition information and
frequently present classes at McCabe
on topics such as nutrition, prenatal
care, problems during pregnancy, and
infant nutrition.
"Studies have shown that the closer
kids are to a program like this, the
healthier they and their babies are,"
says Verda.
Reinforcing the goals of WIG and
McCabe is the Young Parents Out­reach
Program (YPOP). A unique pro­gram
of the Mental Health Clinic,
YPOP has received national attention
for its work with teen parents. The out­reach
workers for YPOP help teens
cope with a multitude of problems and
facilitate their enrollment in programs
designed to assist them .
"We work closely with WIG because
we find, initially, nutrition is perhaps
the key element that makes the dif­ference
for these kids," says Renee
Denkins, a senior outreach worker.
"Our kids are terribly at risk, and we
work closely with them," she adds.
"You have to love them, and if you
don't, you can't work with them. You
can't be judgmental."
Many graduates
lead full lives
Before McCabe, teenage girls were
required to leave public school by the
twenty-eighth week of their pregnan­cies.
If they wanted to continue their
studies, they did so at home. Many
dropped out.
Alumnae of McCabe say the school
provided a caring atmosphere that
helped them feel better about them­selves.
Recently, about 12 former stu­dents
formed a group committed to
helping current students stay in
28
school.
"We are successful women who
have achieved our goals," says group
member Cheryl Atkinson, who
attended McCabe twice but managed
to graduate on time with her class and
go on to receive associate degrees in
data processing and computer pro­gramming,
and business administra­tion.
Another member of the group is
currently an assistant vice president of
a bank.
The group recently visited McCabe
to talk with the girls. "For many of the
girls, their pregnancies aren't real yet,
but they have to realize it is no longer
just their own lives they are dealing
with," says Atkinson.
"They've chosen a different road.
They've chosen adulthood, and now
they have to be prepared to provide
for their infants. That is what the
group is for-to help them see there
are options available to them."
The McCabe teachers, WIG staff,
YPOP outreach workers, HHC staff
and former students are all working
together to help these teen mothers
build better futu res for themselves and
their children.
Are they successful? Only time will
tell with each girl. McCabe students
are delivering healthier babies, the
majority are returning to school, and
the incidence of repeat attendance is
declining.
" It's all about caring ," says Fran­cesca
Verda. "They know there is a
place where they are cared about and
not judged. It makes them want to
continue."
For more information on the
McCabe school, contact:
Elizabeth Celotto, Principal
Polly T. McCabe Center
390 Columbus Avenue
New Haven, Connecticut 06519
Telephone: (203) 787-8758
For more information on the pro­grams
at the Hill Health Center,
contact:
Robert Kilpatrick
Hill Health Center
400 Columbus Avenue
New Haven, Connecticut 06519
Telephone: (203) 773-1134
article and photos
by Cynthia Tackett
a
From an open window, a perfect
spring day breezes across the Chi­cago
Loop classroom. Twenty young
men and women nervously sit,
dressed in their best business attire.
One by one, they walk to the front
desk and introduce themselves to vol­unteer
instructor Veronica Barney,
who takes them through a practice job
interview.
For 19-year-old Eloise Bullock and
her classmates, this is one of the most
difficult tasks required of them by Jobs
For Youth, a nonprofit agency that
places low-income youths in unsub­sidized
private-sector jobs.
Bullock, a welfare-dependent
mother of a 1-year-old, hopes to join
nearly 1 ,000 successful Jobs for
Youth graduates who last year were
able to turn to work instead of welfare.
Jobs for Youth is supported by more
than 200 businesses and corporations
and places graduates with more than
350 local employers.
Team approach
gets results
Julie Dillon, director of volunteer
services for Jobs for Youth, attributes
her agency's team-oriented approach
of counseling, placement, and follow­up
for its 1 0-year track record of suc­cessful
job placements.
"Everyone gets 2 years of Jobs for
Youth service from our team of 100
volunteer tutors and counselors, as
well as our full-time staff," says Dillon.
"When you walk in here, you are
immediately assigned to an employ­ment
counselor," she explains. Every­one
is then enrolled in a 3-week
workshop taught by a variety of volun-
Food and Nutrition
:hicago Group
Helps Kids
"Earn" obs
At a special graduation ceremony, Jobs
for Youth students gain recognition for
completing an intensive 3-week pre­employment
training program.
teers from local businesses.
The 3-week pre-employment work­shop--
3 hours daily-covers career
development, how to complete job
applications, body language, dressing
for interviews, language skills, inter­Summer
1988
viewing techniques, and job-keeping
skills.
"Emphasis is on not only getting a
job, but keeping a job," explains
Dillon. "Exposure to successful role
models is key to our success."
...
Volunteers such as a bank vice
president, account executives from ad
agencies, and executives like the U.S.
Department of Treasury's Veronica
Barney, provide positive role models
for students as well as expert instruc-
29
..
Students attending the Learning Center at
Jobs for Youth have an opportunity to
raise their academic levels and prepare for
the G.E.D. exam. One student who did this
is Alex Guerrero (seated), pictured here
with center director Gary Paprocki.
tion and guidance.
"I tell them an interview is like com­bat,"
says Barney. "You've got to pre­pare
and practice."
Students matched
with counselors
Following the 3-week workshop,
30
each student is matched with an indi­vidual
vocational counselor to assess
the student's strengths and weak­nesses,
employability, and career
interests.
"We work closely with students to
overcome barriers to employment,
such as attitudes toward work, low
self-esteem, and lack of day care for
young parents," says Dillon.
Everyone entering the program is
also tested to ascertain their reading
and math competency levels. Those
who test below the sixth grade level
register for the G.E.D. (Graduate
Equivalency Degree) exam and attend
the Jobs for Youth Learning Center.
Tim Brown, 19, found a job in res­taurant
maintenance through Jobs for
Youth. He comes to the Learning Cen­ter
every day after work to study for
his G.E.D. exam. Brown sees his res­taurant
job as temporary and plans to
go to college or join the military. .
"I've really learned to communicate
with people," says Brown. " Everything
I was asked in my real job interview I
learned how to handle here," he says.
Others, like Earett Fisher, landed a
job in the maintenance department at
the American Red Cross headquarters
in Chicago. Mercantile Exchange
employee Alex Guerrero enrolled in
Jobs for Youth Learning Center and
earned his G.E.D. studying part-time.
Another young man is now working to
become a gemologist at a local jew­eler,
while a young woman secured a
position as a trader's assistant in a
brokerage office.
Mac Olsen, Jobs for Youth director
of communications, says a real meas­ure
of success is in the quality of jobs
the young people earn. "When we first
started out 1 0 years ago," he says,
Food and Nutrition
"more than 50 percent of our jobs
were in fast foods. Now, that's less
than 15 percent."
Local businesses
make this possible
Strong support from local busi­nesses
and employers enables Jobs
for Youth to maintain quality job
placements.
Jobs for Youth Employment Serv­ices
representative Kay Trotter points
to the Youth Training and Develop­ment
program at Kraft, Inc., corporate
headquarters in suburban Glenview,
Illinois.
"The Kraft program is designed to
give our graduates 6 weeks of practi­cal
working experience in a corporate
setting," says Trotter. Kraft has been
able to hire more than 40 Jobs for
Youth graduates.
"Our kids are not promised a job,
they have to earn it," says Trotter.
"They have an opportunity to let Kraft
know how good they are."
But teaching their students how to
take advantage of that opportunity to
prove themselves often presents a
challenge for staff and volunteers at
Jobs for Youth.
"Most of the kids come in here with
Jobs for Youth graduate
Earett Fisher now works in
the vehicle maintenance
department at Red Cross
headquarters in Chicago.
battered self-esteem," says Liz Hersh,
director of youth services. Hersh says
Jobs for Youth helps kids build confi­dence
through discipline, hard work,
and accomplishment.
"Just walking into this big building,
going up the elevator, talking to
strangers on the phone and in person,
conforming to the dress code-that
builds confidence," she says. .
"It's also self-selection. They screen
themselves out. They have to punch
in on the time clock for the workshop,
and unexcused lateness or absences
mean they're out of the program. We
demand a high level of performance."
Performance is also what the Illinois
Department of Public Aid hopes to tap
· from a recently signed employment
and training contract with Jobs for
Youth. The contract, which calls for
Jobs for Youth to place 75 public aid
recipients in jobs, was negotiated with
Illinois' Project Chance, the largest
welfare-to-work program in the
country.
With minority youth employment
running nearly 50 percent in large
urban areas like Chicago, the staff at
Jobs for Youth have no illusions about
their overall impact on the problem.
"We received 1 , 1 00 calls in 3 days
after running some public service
radio announcements recently," says
Liz Hersh. "For the ones who actually
come in here, it really shows they're
motivated. And for those kids who
need a break and have a strong
desire to work and a willingness to
change, Jobs for Youth can make a
difference."
Recent enrollee Michael Burger, 18,
agrees. "Even my parents have
noticed the improvement in me," he
says. "I'm up early every morning,
really motivated, and full of hope."
For more information, contact:
John D. Connelly, Executive Director
Jobs for Youth
67 East Madison Street Room 1900
Chicago, Illinois 60603
Telephone: (312) 782-2086
article by Lawrence Rudman
photos by Jobs for Youth
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