Weekly Roundup of the news on women and supportive services in job training programs.
Job training can provide an entry into family-sustaining jobs and careers. Many women in job training programs, however, face obstacles to success. Wraparound services—such as child care assistance, access to public benefits, and transportation or housing assistance—can help adults, particularly those with caregiving responsibilities, to complete programs that will ultimately improve their economic standing.
August 7, 2016
Tuscon.Com: Southern Arizona training program lifts students out of minimum wage
The Pima County Interfaith Council launched Jobpath in 1998. The program offers job training, matches students with scholarships to community college and places students in apprenticeships in the fields they hope to enter.
During the 2014-15 school year, the program supported 225 students, Dusenberry said. Students can receive financial assistance for school as well as for everyday needs, which was a big help for Popp while she earned her degree. Child care was a serious challenge Popp faced while she was in school — her youngest daughter was only in first grade at the time. The program helped with child-care expenses and provided gas cards to help her get her kids to school.
August 6, 2016
Crain’s Detroit Business: Michigan colleges leaders in offering Pell Grants to Prisoners
The college [Jackson College] is one of three in Michigan, and more than 60 across the country, to be chosen to participate in a U.S. Department of Education pilot program that will waive restrictions on federal Pell Grants for prisoners in order to find out whether more prisoners will pursue education if they have financial assistance.
[…] A few years ago, Michigan was one of three states, including New Jersey and North Carolina, chosen to participate in a five-year effort called Pathways from Prison to Postsecondary Education. Sponsored by the New York-based nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice and funded by several foundations — including the Battle Creek-based W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Ford Foundation, based in New York City — the Pathways pilot offered inmates within two years of their release date in Pontiac and Kalamazoo the chance to take college classes and receive other support services. Researchers will follow the inmates for two years once they’re paroled.
August 3, 2016
Gainesville.Com: $4M grant tackles barriers for job seekers
Once the Opportunity Quest program launches in late fall, CareerSource NCFL and its partners will provide the kind of entrepreneurship training it offered Springer through Startup Quest, as well as technology skills training, paid work experience and childcare for up to 250 parents with children under 13 in Alachua and Bradford counties. There is no cost to the parents.
[…] The agency was one of 11 awarded $25 million out of 127 applications through the Labor Department’s Strengthening Working Families Initiatives.
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