A Community Organizing Approach to Micro-enterprise Education and Job Training

(James Thing, Center for Religion and Civic Culture, University of Southern California, 2004)

Most micro-enterprise and job training programs focus on individuals. They provide skills that assist individuals to enter the employment market or to start small businesses.  Sometimes these programs must first clear obstacles in the way of their clients to ensure their success when they start a new job or launch a business.  This was the case in Los Angeles for a faith-based micro-enterprise and job training program.  In order to create the healthy environment its clients need, its job-training activities are thoroughly embedded in community organizing strategies.  This alternative approach to job training should be especially interesting to FBOs whose programs are neighborhood-based.

According to its director, this innovative program[1] was founded “by the community at large,” e.g., by street vendors, religious associations, immigrant rights organizations, politicians, local universities and colleges, and various neighborhood groups.  For over 15 years, these organizations had been engaged in a campaign to legalize street vending. Legalized street vending, coalition leaders believed, would provide ways for immigrants to enter the region’s mainstream economy. After all, street vending is a familiar activity for many of them. Such an initiative could also economically energize low-income neighborhoods, especially those home to large numbers of Latino immigrants.

The coalition succeeded.  In 1994, the city identified eight potential vending districts, each of which could be brought to life when exacting standards were met.

A mainline Protestant urban development foundation came up with an imaginative idea: Create a micro-enterprise and job training program that could anchor a vending district, adjacent to the downtown district.  It could serve as a laboratory, in which organizations could gain experience in discovering what it takes to meet city vending district standards, revitalize an urban neighborhood, and serve the needs of Latino participants. Groups that had been working to legalize street vending liked the proposal.

This is part of a series of Thumbnail Case Studies authored by the FASTEN research team and released by Baylor University School of Social Work as part of a 30-month research project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.  This project is designed to identify the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in addressing problems of urban poverty.  Baylor is leading this project with researchers from Baylor University’s business school, the schools of social work at the University of Pittsburgh and Virginia Commonwealth University, and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California.

A team of researchers from these four universities have interviewed various stakeholders from fifteen (15) promising faith-based programs in four United States cities.  This ends the data collection portion of Phase I of a grounded theory research project in which participants, board members, administrators, program coordinators, and collaborators in these fifteen programs have been interviewed face-to-face.

The findings of this first phase will be the foundation for a quantitative national survey designed to determine the extent to which the grounded theory that emerges in the project’s first phase can be applied nationally across the diversity of faith-based social services in the United States.  Sagamore Institute’s Faith in Communities program and the Center for Faith and Service of the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), Baylor’s partners in this project, are disseminating the findings of this research through the creation of the Faith & Service Technical Education Network (FASTEN).

The piece was authored by James Thing (with the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California) with the FASTEN Research Team.  He can be reached at thing@usc.edu. 

Reactions to Change

(Excerpted from Transition to the Workplace: a Curriculum of Job-Seeking Skills for Displaced Homemakers and Single Parents, by Catherine L. Weis, 1998. Reprint permission granted by the Center on Education and Work, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, 964 Edcuational Sciences Building, Madison, WI, 53706-1796. 800.446./0399; fax 608.262.9197. www.cew.wisc.edu; cewmail@education.wisc.edu)

Understanding common reactions to the changes or transitions which occur in our lives can also help us to deal more effectively with them.  Some common character reactions to change include those listed below:

The manner in which we deal with change can have an impact on the way in which we need to deal with it.  The chart below will help you assess your own character in the face of change.

MY REACTIONS TO CHANGE 

1. Are there things you could do to strengthen or improve your current situation?  If so, what are they?   How will you implement a plan to make these improvements?
2. Are you satisfied with your response to recent changes in your life?  If not, why?  What could you do to improve your outlook and/or ability to deal with and master the changes you are facing?
3. Has your level of support from others changed with this transition?  How?  If necessary, what action could you take to increase the level of support you are receiving from others?
4. What are some of the coping strategies you would like to enhance or begin using?  Below, outline a plan for using/improving at least one of these strategies.  For example, "I will listen to a relaxation tape at least once a week."
5. What character reactions described in the "reactions to change" handout do you think best describes your most common reaction to change?
6. Do you feel that your behavior during the current transition/change is consistent with your usual behavior?  Why or why not?

(Excerpted from Transition to the Workplace: a Curriculum of Job-Seeking Skills for Displaced Homemakers and Single Parents, by Catherine L. Weis, 1998. Reprint permission granted by the Center on Education and Work, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1025 W. Johnson Street, 964 Edcuational Sciences Building, Madison, WI, 53706-1796. 800.446./0399; fax 608.262.9197. www.cew.wisc.edu; cewmail@education.wisc.edu)

From Welfare to Work:  A Participant Discusses What Makes One Faith-Based Program Work

by Pamela Leong (Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California, 2004)

National studies have repeatedly suggested that welfare-to-work participants value the trust, love, support, and respect that they often experience within faith-based job training and job placement programs. Whether or not these relational characteristics can be associated with religiously-motivated commitments to compassion and justice among staff members, it is important to note their centrality in the minds of participants when they attempt to account for their own successes.  Relationships matter. Sensitivity matters.  Emotional, material, and social supports matter.

In the following paragraphs, one participant in a faith-based job training and job placement program speaks for herself.  Mary is a 45-year-old, single, African-American woman who is the mother of an 18-year-old girl. She has moved from welfare to gainful employment successfully.  She tells us what mattered in her trek into the employment market.

Although our description of Mary is intended to protect her identity, her observations are reported in a straightforward way.

• Mary expressed gratitude for the job training she received—especially for training related to resume writing and computer skills.
• Mary appreciated the various ways in which staff members offered material support. For example, when Mary’s car broke down, staff members were able to provide bus tokens. When she could not afford to pay for gasoline, they covered the bill.  When Mary could not afford the kinds of clothing that she needed for her job search, they made sure that suitable clothing was available. 
• The most important element in her successful association with the faith-based job training program, however, was the emotional and social support extended by the staff.  In a county program, Mary reported, the staff had been rude and “nasty and mean.” Two of the staff members had laughed at her attire and at her disheveled appearance. In the faith-based program, staff members were nonjudgmental and supportive. “They care,” Mary says.  “They genuinely care….I was in quick sand.  I was steadily being pulled down, and they reached out to me and pulled me out, washed me off, cleaned me up, and I haven’t looked back since….” 

Even when times were tough in the extreme, Mary remembers that the staff maintained  “faith” in her. For example, on one occasion she was sent to a job interview, which, to her surprise, required a drug test.  When she failed this test, Mary reported, “I was so embarrassed I couldn’t come in and face [the program’s staff].” She stopped coming to the program until a staff member traveled to her home and convinced her that she would be welcomed back. “[I had] let them down a couple times,” Mary said.  “And they still believed in me.  They stood by me, and they worked hard with me.  They never gave up.” 

There were other personal touches:  The staff sent Mary a Christmas card, which she treasured. When she opened a checking account and a credit card account, a dinner was held to honor her accomplishments. “You know how you take a prize home to your mom, and your mom is glowing….I mean, they were so proud of me and I felt that.  It’s just a self-esteem booster.” 

• Mary was quick to point out that the program does not encourage dependence:  “The door’s open and the opportunity is there.  It’s for you to come in.  They’ll back you up, but you gotta come in and make that first step.  If you don’t make that first step, they are not gonna push you.” The program emphasizes self-reliance, self-motivation, and self-direction.  This strategy appears to be effective, at least from Mary’s perspective. “You know, if you had somebody in your life that’s constantly telling you you’re dumb, you’re not gonna make it, you feel dumb and you feel like you’re not gonna make it. But if you’ve got somebody tellin’ you everyday, ‘You’re beautiful, you can do this, you can do that,’ you know, you start to believe after you hear it so long.  And all this time, no one was telling me that I could do that, until I came here.  No one.  And so, I mean, they help[ed] me out a lot, and I thank God for ‘em…. I feel they’ve made me Cinderella.”  They took a rag…raggly old something and made me feel like Cinderella.”

A common mistake, according to the program director, occurs when staff members intentionally or unintentionally disaggregate the various types of support needed by participants.  Welfare-to-work programs simultaneously require multiple forms of support. “We have a lot of objectives,” the director said, “ but our primary objective is to economically empower impoverished people….And how we do that under our program is through education, training, case management, but most of all, handholding.  And we emphasize the handholding, because a lot of these people have never had a helping hand.”

The emotional and social supports that are extended to participants are central in the strategies of successful welfare-to-work programs. As Mary reported over and over, the presence of these supports enabled her to move from welfare dependence onto gainful employment. She was given a realistic opportunity to reclaim her own self-esteem and dignity. 

Mary’s success illustrates the need for faith-based welfare-to-work programs to provide four general types of support[1] to its participants:

1. INSTRUMENTAL SUPPORTis help, aid, or assistance with tangible needs.  At this faith-based welfare-to-work program, instrumental support includes training related to resume writing, computer skills, as well as on-the-job training.  But program staff members also offer other forms of material support that may not be directly related to job training (e.g., bus tokens, clothing, etc.).
2. APPRAISAL/EVALUATIONrefers to the provision of appropriate feedback or assistance in the decision-making process.  At this faith-based welfare-to-work program, staff members regularly evaluated participants’ skills in basic mathematics and English writing and reading, as well as in basic computational abilities.
3. INFORMATIONAL SUPPORTrefers to the provision of advice or information in the service of particular needs. 
4. EMOTIONAL SUPPORTrefers to the emotional component:  handholding, love, care, understanding, forgiving participants for transgresses, boosting of self-esteem, being non-judgmental.  In fact, emotional support may be the single most important element in the participant experience in the welfare-to-work program.  Mary herself attributed her successful progression in the faith-based job training program to the emotional and social support extended by the staff.

_______________________________________________________________________

This is part of a series of Thumbnail Case Studies authored by the FASTEN research team and released by Baylor University School of Social Work as part of a 30-month research project funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.  This project is designed to identify the factors that contribute to the effectiveness of faith-based organizations (FBOs) in addressing challenges of urban poverty.  The Baylor School of Social Work is leading this research team with members from BaylorUniversity’s business school, the schools of social work at the Universityof Pittsburghand VirginiaCommonwealthUniversity, and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the Universityof Southern California.

This essay represents some of the findings from the FASTEN research project that are relevant to the planning and delivery of services by faith-based organizations.  The piece was authored by Pamela Leong (with the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the Universityof Southern California) with the FASTEN Research Team.  She can be reached at pamelale@usc.edu.

La Sociedad Nacional De Trabajos (The National Jobs Partnership)

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Sumario:

En sobre veinte ciudades por toda la nación, las iglesias y los líderes de negocio se han ensamblado juntos para funcionar los programas de la sociedad de los trabajos, dando nueva esperanza al des-empleado y al ‘bajo-empleado.’ Los participantes toman clases de habilidades de la vida y de “la preparación para el trabajo” mientras que son animados por un mentor personal. Al graduarse, tienen oportunidad de buscar trabajos a través de una red de los negocios que participan e interesados en emplear a participantes de JP. La Oficina Nacional aconseja individuos interesados en el replicar el programa en sus propias comunidades y proveer servicios de entrenamiento y de la consulta.

¿Por qué FASTEN recomendaron este recurso?

El programa de la sociedad de los trabajos ha probado acertado en una variedad de contextos.  En total, el programa ha graduado a 1,756 participantes y, entre estos graduados, los ha alcanzado una cantidad de retención notable del trabajo de 83 por ciento. En algunas ciudades, los programas de la sociedad de trabajos están colaborando con los centros de la “One Stop Center locales u otras agencias de estado.