Job Training

DCWA: Free job training programs throughout D.C. help build skills and self-sufficiency.

Posted on by Sarah Epstein

As unemployment in Washington, D.C. reaches nearly 10 percent, and once booming industries shut down, more and more people struggle to find new opportunities to earn a living wage. 

Many of these individuals lack the skills, education, or training necessary to attain jobs that will allow them to become self-sufficient. 

In response to these growing problems, the D.C. Women’s Agenda joined together with the D.C. Employment Justice Center–both of which are Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation–to sponsor an event featuring representatives from seven free job training programs.

More than 60 people attended.

Arhelia Finnie, the Trainee Services and Recruitment Coordinator from the DC Central Kitchen, described the Culinary Job Training program offered at her organization.  Students who attend this program participate in a 12-week training program and learn the culinary skills to work in hotels, restaurants, and other food facilities.  Trainees participate in hands-on kitchen training, visits from guest chefs, and classroom learning. Following the training, participants have internships in restaurants in order to experience the day-to-day tasks and challenges of working in the culinary field. If you would like more information about this program, email Ms. Finnie at afinnie@dccentralkitchen.org.  

Howard Brown, the Interim Director for Workforce Development at the University of D.C. spoke about their training program, where students receive the education and tools to become employed in four different careers: healthcare, administrative, hospitality, and medical. The UDC program offers different training programs for each career path described above. If you would like more information, email Mr. Brown at hmb1000@flash.net.  

Samira Cook, the Assistant Director of the Training and Education Division of the District of Columbia Department of Small and Local Business Development (DSLBD), represented the D.C. Government. Unlike the programs training in specific fields, Ms. Cook’s program assists D.C. residents to become entrepreneurs. The program provides training in creating a business plan, money management and business development. If you would like more information about this program, please e-mail Ms. Samira at samira.cook@dc.gov.  

Debony Heart, the Director of Programs for Byte Back, discussed the rapid growth of technology in the workplace and the need for technical and computer skills for jobs on the market today. Byte Back, provides low-income individuals with classes in typing, and computer literacy.  If you would like more information about this program, please e-mail Ms. Heart at dheart@byteback.org.  

Jacquelyn A. Moore is the Case Manager for The Washington Area Women in the Trades program, (a program sponsored by Wider Opportunities for Women, The YWCA and The AFL-CIO). The program helps women attain the necessary skills to enter non-traditional, often male- dominated jobs, to achieve financial security and self sufficiency. Following completion of the program, participants are placed in welding, steel working, and construction jobs. For more information, please contact Ms. jmoore@ywcana.org.  

Ellie Phillips, the Founder and Executive Producer of Beyond Talent, described the training program they offer. The program seeks to empower non-traditional high school graduates (individuals with a GED or other high school equivalent) to overcome barriers to higher education and employment to enable success. In addition to a mentoring program, Beyond Talent provides financial and other support to those seeking additional college education or vocational training. If you would like more information about this program, Ms. Phillips at phillips@beyondtalent.org.  

Emily Price, the Program Director of So Others May Eat’s (SOME) Center for Employment Training (a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation) explained that participants in the program focus on developing skills in one of three occupations: business and customer relations associate, service technician, or medical administrative assistant. The curriculum is developed based on the needs of employer in the fields enumerated above. Their job placement rate has been as high as 95 percent. If you would like more information about this program, please email Ms. Price at eprice@some.org.  

Attendees then had the opportunity to participate in a question and answer session with the program representatives and many stayed to speak to them individually.  Participants collected brochures and information supplied by the representatives.

Unemployment is high, and the hope is that these programs will help residents take the first steps towards earning a self sufficient wage and achieving a greater quality of life.

Sarah Epstein is an intern at the DC Women’s Agenda, a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation that is a coalition of advocacy organizations, service providers, and individuals working to promote the advancement of equality, safety and well-being for women and girls in the District. It is chaired by Wider Opportunities for Women.

Job training and creation should also be the solution for unemployed single mothers.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

Thank you to the Joint Economic Committee for drawing attention to rising unemployment among women-headed families in its new report, “Women in the Recession: Working Mothers Face High Rates of Unemployment.”

With so much public attention being paid to job loss among men, which, don’t get me wrong, is and should be of deep concern, the challenges for women have too often been overlooked.

How many others – besides we at The Women’s Foundation and those who attended our May 2009 Stepping Stones Research Briefing– would know that the national unemployment rate for women who are heads of households was 11 percent in May – higher than the 9.8 percent rate among men?.

Our national response to rising men’s unemployment, particularly in the manufacturing and construction sectors, has been to increase funding for job training and education and engage in job creation.  In fact, this was a key focus of the stimulus package passed earlier this year – and the President has also been talking about this even more in the last few days.

Don’t get me wrong – I think it is always good public policy to fund job training and job creation.  But I can’t help but compare this response to “welfare reform” of the 1990s, where low-income women heads of households were forced into “work first” and “rapid labor market attachment” models that basically forced them to take a job, any job, and offered only barriers to education and training. (This “work first” approach was also a hallmark of the Workforce Investment Act, which reformed the public workforce training system.)

A recent paper demonstrates quite strongly just how counterproductive this approach is.  Research concluded that welfare reform decreased the probability of both high school and college attendance among young adult women by 20 to 25 percent.  In other words, welfare policies have kept women from the very education and training that would help lift them and their families out of poverty and, ironically, offer more protection against unemployment. (Unemployment among individual without a high school diploma is 14.8 percent, compared to 4.4 percent for college graduates.)

I hope that as the Administration and Congress turn their attention to programs serving primarily women and that they will continue to be solidly committed to job training and creation.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

WJLA article highlights impact of local women's construction program.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Many of our readers and community members remember the powerful story of Laceiy and Sharan, and how their lives were changed by a construction job training program, Washington Area Women in the Trades (WAWIT), that is supported by The Women’s Foundation’s Stepping Stones Initiative.

Now, you can learn even more about the program through a WJLA story, "Local Program Expands Career Choices for Women."  The article discusses the success stories of some recent graduates now with exciting careers in construction and other nontraditional fields.

Check it out and learn more about how nontraditional job training for women not only changes the lives of women and their families, but also our community as a whole!

View the WJLA article.
View the video about Laceiy and Sharan’s WAWIT success stories.
Learn more about WAWIT.
Learn more about Stepping Stones.
Learn more about Wider Opportunities for Women and the YWCA of the National Capital Area, two Grantee Partners of The Women’s Foundation who partner to implement WAWIT.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Link to The Women's Funding Network and The Women's Foundation on CNN!

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Earlier today, I wrote about how The Women’s Foundation and The Women’s Funding Network were featured on a story on CNN about how investing in women is one the best strategies for fostering economic recovery.

As promised, here is the link to the CNN clip of Linda’s Butler sharing her amazing story of how a jobs training program at Northern Virginia Family Services, which is supported by The Women’s Foundation, changed her life.

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

Linda Butler speaks on behalf of The Women's Foundation on CNN!

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Today was a bright and early, but exciting, morning for us at The Women’s Foundation!  We were up early to see Linda Butler, who spoke at our 2008 Leadership Luncheon, talk on CNN’s "American Morning" about how her life was changed by a jobs training program at Northern Virginia Family Services supported by The Women’s Foundation.  This morning at 7:30 a.m., she was part of a report on how women’s funds’ approach to economic growth for communities is a model during the tough economic climate in the U.S.

Linda, a beneficiary of our Stepping Stones program, shared her story of how Training Futures, a jobs training program, provided her with resources, knowledge and tools to transition from a low-paid waitressing job to a full-time professional position with benefits.

Women’s Funding Network board member Jacki Zehner was also featured in the piece and discussed it here on her blog, Purse Pundit. 

We are so glad The Women’s Funding Network chose to highlight Stepping Stones when they pitched this story, and are extremely proud of Linda Butler’s courage and poise in taking on the daunting task of going on live, national television to share her story.  At our Leadership Luncheon this year, Linda noted that despite years of abuse and feeling that she was worth very little, Training Futurs helped build her self-esteem, her financial security and helped her "find her voice."

After seeing her on CNN this morning, we’d have to say that that’s the understatement of the year!

We’re hoping to have a link of the piece to share within the next few days, so stay tuned!

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.

New Stepping Stones RFP focuses on increasing and preserving women's economic security in difficult times.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

These are hard times for many, but especially for women-headed families.

Much has been written about the overall U.S. unemployment rate, which rose to 8.1 percent in February 2009, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But did you know that unemployment among women-headed families was even higher at 10.3 percent?

To help community-based organizations in our region respond to the very human challenges behind these numbers, The Women’s Foundation today released a Request for Proposals under the Stepping Stones Initiative.

We hope the work supported by the RFP – through the Financial Education and Wealth Creation Fund and Jobs Fund – will help low-income, women-headed families in our region weather the recession and emerge ready to take best advantage of an eventual recovery.

To respond to the recession, The Women’s Foundation has made several changes to expand the reach of Stepping Stones. Specifically, we:

  • Expanded the target population to women-headed families earning between $0-$40,000;
  • Widened the scope of work to include projects focused on work supports that help promote job retention (such as transportation) and public benefits that serve as a safety net (such as Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance);
  • Emphasized our intention to deepen our investment in advocacy; and,
  • Encouraged strategic collaborations among community-based organizations to work as long and as holistically as possible with the low-income, women-headed families they are serving.

Here at The Women’s Foundation, we are acutely aware that hard times require us to be wise in our investments. 

And that’s our commitment – to our donors, to our Grantee Partners, to Stepping Stones participants and to our community.

Click here to download the RFP.

Gwen Rubinstein is a Program Officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Grantee Partner's affordable, healthy catering options in demand during recession.

Posted on by Lisa Kays

Times are tough for most catering companies these days, but not for one of The Women’s Foundation’s Grantee Partners, Through the Kitchen Door, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

Founded by Liesel Flashenberg, Through the Kitchen Door trains low-income women, at-risk teens and, more recently, domestic violence survivors, in catering skills, as well as the trick of affordable cooking that is still healthy, delicious and attractive to the eye.

Something in high demand as the recession takes hold and companies and individuals look for responsible, affordable ways to cater parties and other events.  With Through the Kitchen Door, not only do clients get excellent quality catering, but they’re also helping support local community development and job training.

A pretty tasty win-win.

Also quoted in the article, which explains how Liesel does it and even gives away some of her recipes and tricks of the trade, is Jeffrey Slavin, a member of The Women’s Foundation’s Washington 100 and a Guy Who Gets It.

The Women’s Foundation is proud to support Liesel and the amazing work she’s doing to help women in our region build stable careers that lead to financial independence. 

Not to mention that we love the food and service and use Through the Kitchen Door for a ton of our own catering!

For more information on Through the Kitchen Door:
Through the Kitchen Door’s Web site
Doreen Gentzler highlights Through the Kitchen Door when she becomes Washingtonian of the Year!
Los Angeles Times article 

Lisa Kays is The Women’s Foundation’s Director of Communications.  Through the Kitchen Door is a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.

Think infrastructure jobs will only work for men? Think again.

Posted on by Gwen Rubinstein

As the economic stimulus package inches closer to Congressional approval and President Obama’s signature, many have focused on who is in and who is out – especially men versus women.

While predictable, this is not particularly productive.

Yes, men’s unemployment is rising faster than women’s.  Losses in the manufacturing and construction sectors have hit men particularly hard.

Still, unemployment among women is also rising, just not as fast. 

As usual, the losses are falling particularly hard on women-headed families, many of whom were also struggling before the recession. 

In addition, if history is any guide, we know women’s unemployment is likely to increase later in the recession.

In the work of repairing the economy, our policymakers need to find the wisdom to focus on the totality of the challenge for all Americans and the courage to question their assumptions.

One assumption I nominate for the recycle bin is that infrastructure jobs (and, for that matter, “green” jobs) are not and cannot be jobs for women.

Here at The Women’s Foundation, through investments made in our Stepping Stones Initiative, we have generated a lot of learning about how to support women in training for non-traditional occupations, such as construction.  Women who have completed these programs have gone on to good jobs with family-sustaining wages and benefits.

Here is one example from Washington Area Women in the Trades (a joint project of the Community Services Agency of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO, Wider Opportunities for Women and the YWCA of the National Capital Area.

J. H. started in June 2008 as a ‘Transformer Tester Helper’ in general utility operations training at the PEPCO facility on Benning Road. The experiences she gained at the Washington Area Women in the Trades program helped her attain this very competitive job, which will put her on a solid career path, allowing her to help support her family and eventually to purchase a home. She starts at a great pay grade – double the minimum wage – and with a generous employee benefits package. After 12 months and after successfully completing the PEPCO exam, she will make even more.

Of course, this kind of success requires more than a physical program. To be successful, women need a rich and stable array of supports to sustain them during training and on the job, including child care, transportation, access to health care and access to financial education to help them reduce their debt, improve their credit and save for the future.

(I’m guessing men probably need some, if not all, of this, as well.)

Because Stepping Stones is a comprehensive and long-term initiative, it invests in all of these services to support low-income, women-headed families in our region.

Even in difficult economic times, we have continued to see our investments reap benefits for these women, their families and our community. I can only hope that our national leaders will look out of the windows of their Washington offices and into our greater Washington community for inspiration and help.

Gwen Rubinstein is a program officer at The Women’s Foundation.

Dear Mr. President…

Posted on by Lisa Kays

On the day after President Obama was sworn in just a few blocks from our office, the staff of The Women’s Foundation thought we’d offer our congratulations, along with (of course) a few items for our wish list of action on the part of the new President. 

So, in the spirit of, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America," we respectfully ask:

Dear Mr. President, Please be holistic in your policies to improve the economic security of low-income women with children. We know what works – although we don’t always act as if we really do. Good policies and programs include income support (or paid time off for participating in training or re-training), child care and transportation (critical work supports), access to health (including dental and biopsychosocial) assessments and services, financial education (debt reduction, credit repair, savings) and access to other needed social services. They also cannot stop when the woman walks out of the training program and into a new job."  Sincerely, Gwen Rubinstein

Dear Mr. President, I urge you to take immediate action to reverse the damage done by new rule adopted in the 11th hour of the Bush Administration, which allows individual health care providers to deny critical information to patients based on the providers’ personal biases. The patient may not even know what’s missing. This rule is particularly damaging for low-income women whose access to health care is already limited.  Please, tell congress to withdraw this damaging rule.  I also ask that you invest in a new green economy. Not only will you work to stop global warming, but you can revitalize our economy through new job growth. We know the best way to improve the lives of communities is to stabilize family income. New jobs in high-growth industries such as this one will go a long way to improving our homes and country, inside and out.  Thanks!  Allison Mitchell 

Dear President Obama, My wish for your administration is that every time you consider a policy or program, you think about the amazing and strong women in your life – your wife, daughters, sister, mother-in-law, mother and grandmother – and think about what that policy would mean for them. Would it keep them safe or put them at risk?  Would it open the door to new opportunities for them or shut them out?  Given the incredible impact on your life that all of these women have had already, their continued guidance can only ensure that your message of hope, inclusiveness and understanding becomes a reality during your administration.  Sincerely, Sharon Levin

Dear President Obama, I would ask you to keep in mind in your staffing and appointments the importance of women’s leadership, which does make an impact in ensuring that decision-making reflects the needs, concerns and realities of women and families.  In addition, just as you are a model of leadership for a new generation who will no longer see race as a barrier to achievement, so too is it important to have similar models for young women showing that gender need not pose a challenge or deterrant to any of their dreams and choices.  Sincerely, Lisa Kays

Dear Mr. President, I hope that all little children to have access to quality early education programs so that they may succeed in school and life.  Sincerely, HyeSook Chung 

But most of all, we congratulate you, and wish you the best as you and your Administration work to lead our nation at a time of such challenge and opportunity.

Do you have any ideas or requests of the new President and his Administration for how they can work to improve the lives of women and girls?  Leave them in comments!

Help from community inspires improvement in college essays.

Posted on by Tia Felton

Last Friday, several District of Columbia students, myself included, filed onto the 8th floor of the Watergate building.  We were all interns with The Urban Alliance Foundation, and were there to get professional help from newspaper editors, lawyers, and other successful people, including my mentor Lisa Kays, on our college essays.

It is routine and mandatory that each Friday afternoon all interns attend a workshop class.  During this time, we are informed of events, discuss events that have happened during the work week, and are educated about key things to know when working in a professional environment and also that you will need throughout life–such as professional attire, how to use technology and managing money and bank accounts.

Since interns are seniors in high school, we have also been focusing a lot on college and making plans, setting goals and working to reach those goals.  We have been discussing applications and different scholarships that are available for us to receive.  Over the last few weeks, we have been drafting our college essay.

The dreadful college essay that most of us fear.  The one thing that is going to set you aside from hundreds of thousands of other applicants applying to the same school.

There have been several editors and writers who have come in and talked to the classes as a whole about writing our essays.  But on Friday, everyone received that one-on-one attention that they needed. 

We were paired up with a professional and then sat in a quiet area where we could focus and really think.

It was very helpful to get this sort of help. Little things that you might not catch, another person will, and it is those little things that can make a writing piece excellent. 

It was a very successful event.  No one was rude or judgmental towards anyone’s writing.  They were only helpful in as many ways possible.

In the end, every last intern walked away with a sense of confidence that they can write an excellent essay, and that it is going to get them into the college of their choosing.

Tia Felton is a senior at McKinley Tech High School and an intern at The Women’s Foundation through Urban Alliance–a Grantee Partner of The Women’s Foundation.  When she graduates from high school this year, she hopes to go to college and eventually to become a lawyer.

To learn more about the Urban Alliance internship program, click here.