More than a Counselor blog series: #1 - Meet Holly Hanson

Meet Holly Hanson, career counselor and job developer for JobTrain’s construction training programs, Project Build and Laborers Construction Fundamentals. Holly provides students with one-on-one career counseling and job placement assistance to ensure their success. However, her work goes beyond counseling, career placement and a 9-to-5 schedule. She is a mentor and is available to her students for just about anything.  For the next 8 months, Holly is going to share stories about her work with different students so you can have a better understanding of JobTrain’s students and the impact JobTrain’s work has on their lives.

In this first blog post, Holly shares the story of her work with a single father in Project Build.

Mike was unemployed and came to the Unemployment Development Department, located at JobTrain’s offices, to file for unemployment. It was during this meeting that he first learned about JobTrain’s free vocational training classes and decided to enroll. I first met with Mike at orientation and he shared with me that he had previously attended vocational training offered by another organization.  He was now $30,000 in debt and still had no job.  The previous training had promised him a job at the end of his training, but when he graduated he found that there was little to no demand for the position he had trained for. Mike is a single father so to support his daughter he took a job as a security guard. Unfortunately, he was barely making ends meet and then to make it worse, his work hours were reduced.

Mike was determined not to fail his daughter. When I met with him for our first one-on-one session, I knew that he would be a great candidate for Project Build because he was organized, punctual and thoughtful about his future. I also connected him to our on-site child development center so that his 4-year-old daughter had a safe place to be while he attended classes. Shortly after he enrolled in the program, I noticed that he was struggling to maintain focus in the class. I asked Mike to meet with me to see if he was okay. Mike then shared that the mother of his child is an alcoholic and abuses alcohol in the presence of their child. He was in the process of helping her enter a treatment facility. Mike explained, “My child needs her mother whether we are together or not. My daughter deserves to have two parents.”

Mike is a good student despite his personal struggles with single parenting. We continue to have regular check-ins to see which unions he has researched and applied for as well as regular updates on how he and his daughter are doing.  I love seeing him and his daughter leave together after school.  The true happiness I see on their faces shows that despite Mike’s stress, he never lets it affect his ability to be a good father.

Stay tuned for next month’s blog post on Holly’s work with a student who was previously incarcerated and looking to start a new chapter in his life.

JobTrain to Offer Free Coding Class Beginning April 6th

Beginning on April 6, 2015, JobTrain will offer a free 4-month Coding Class designed to give students practical, real world skills to help prepare them for entry-level jobs in the technology sector.  JobTrain is a local nonprofit job training and placement center with extensive experience serving a diverse and dynamic population and works closely with technology companies throughout the Bay Area to ensure that program content matches employer needs.

The class will include a mixture of lecture, class discussion, special projects, and guest speakers.  Students will also complete a portfolio that they can use to show potential employers what they have learned.  The curriculum will include: Introduction to Computer Science, Fundamentals of HTML, Introduction to CSS, Introduction to JavaScript, and Ruby on Rails.

This will be a full-time, 16-week course and includes JobTrain’s Essential Skills classes which cover such topics as problem solving, customer service, budgeting, and goal setting.  JobTrain’s comprehensive “whole person” approach to student success, also includes counseling, supportive services, and job placement.  This course will cover content from several Cañada College courses and students will receive college credits and start a transcript, providing them with a pathway to further educational opportunities.

For more information about this class, please call Lacey Padgett at (650) 330-6418 or email: lpadgett@jobtrainworks.org.

Your "LIKE" Matters! Show Your Love for JobTrain on Facebook!

Cupcakes for EVERYONE, if we reach our goal!

Tell your family and friends to “LIKE” JobTrain on Facebook today at www.facebook.com/jobtrain

Come by JobTrain for a FREE Valentine's Day Cupcake on 

Friday, February 13th beginning at 12:00 noon! (while supplies last)

Help us cross the finish line - make your donation to JobTrain today!

As we near the end of our annual Holiday Campaign, we would like to announce that we are very close to achieving our goal – you can help us cross the finish line by making a donation today!

JobTrain closed out 2014 by providing job training and supportive services to over 8,000 people throughout the Bay Area.  Your gift will help a student like Raina, a Project Build graduate who spent a decade in and out of prison before turning her life around with help from a partnership between the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office and JobTrain.  When Raina was chosen to represent her graduating class she had this to say, “JobTrain has helped to change my life for the better.  I’ve learned at JobTrain that if I can find the courage to follow my dreams, the doors of opportunity become endless.”  Today Raina is a member of Carpenters Union Local 217.

To help JobTrain reach our goal, you may make a donation from our safe and secure donation site by CLICKING HERE, or you may contact Reshma Putnam at (650) 330-6436 or rputnam@jobtrainworks.org.  Your gift will be matched by donations from JobTrain’s Board of Directors and community champions. 

Thank you for helping those most in need to succeed!

What If Failure Were Not An Option?

This is the time of year when I think about “what if.”  What if everyone started life with a safe place to live, to learn, and with enough to eat?

Having spent a year at JobTrain, I have another “what if” on my list.  What if we truly believed that everyone has the potential for a better life?  Instead of “x-ing” people out and limiting ourselves to those we let in, we decided that everyone should be included?  What if we believed failure was not an option? 

When faced with scarce resources, our communities often respond with choosing people we know will succeed.  What if, instead, we decided that everyone had potential, and that those most in need could succeed?  What if we developed a set of supports and programs, in an atmosphere where everything was geared to helping people realize this potential and where everyone believed in them and insisted that they not give up? 

A young man recently spoke of his time at JobTrain.  Everything around him was dragging him down a path he knew would lead nowhere.  He didn’t really believe in himself.  Everyone at JobTrain kept telling him: “we know it may seem easier to fail, to not try, to not make it.  But, that isn’t an option here… we won’t let you.”  He began to see that a new life was possible.  Today, he runs his own business and even employs JobTrain students.  He said that this was the first time and place, anywhere he had ever been, where the only option was to succeed.

JobTrain’s own numbers demonstrate the impact of this approach: 89% graduate.  Over the past several years, our graduates have gone on to collectively earn millions of dollars of wages, and for those who have been incarcerated, are more likely to be employed than go back to jail. 

Our new Three Year Strategic Plan is a vision for JobTrain’s future, created by supporters, friends, and community members who know that in a world where failure is not an option, fewer people fail.  More people find a path to success, where they contribute to the community, prosper, and grow.  This in turn leads to a world where fewer and fewer people are hungry, homeless, and cold. 

We are so grateful to our community, our supporters, and our champions, who believe, as JobTrain does, that failure is not an option.  Thank you for your continued support and may you have a joyous holiday season.   

To learn more, or to support JobTrain, please CLICK HERE.

Nora Sobolov

Executive Director

JobTrain Named A 2014 Top-Rated Nonprofit

JobTrain is pleased to announce that it is one of the winners of the 2014 Top-Rated Awards by GreatNonprofits.  Founded in 2007, GreatNonprofits is the leading provider of reviews and ratings of nonprofit organizations throughout the United States, as well as a developer of tools that allow people to find, review, and share information about nonprofits and charities.

Friends, partners, and other stakeholders of JobTrain helped make this award possible by sharing their real-life experiences with JobTrain on the GreatNonprofits website over the last few months.  JobTrain is truly honored to receive this special award.

To view JobTrain’s page on the GreatNonprofits website, please click here!

State of the Nonprofit

I’m writing to share with you JobTrain’s 2014 Three Year Strategic Plan, our 2014 Annual Report and our 2014 Report to Stakeholders.  While it is hard to capture the transformative power of JobTrain’s work on paper, these reports will tell you what we do, how we do it, the impact we have had and where we are going in the near future

JobTrain's Three Year Strategic Plan was created in extensive consultation with our many stakeholders.  As we plan to celebrate our 50th year, we are exploring exciting new opportunities to raise awareness, further share our model, expand our impact, develop ongoing revenue that will add to our long-term sustainability, and provide the on-the-job training that our students need.  In future years, our Report to Stakeholders will explain how JobTrain performed against our goals.

Click here to see JobTrain's Three Year Strategic Plan

Our Annual Report is a brief overview of who JobTrain served, how we served them, and the impact we had in the community. 

Click here to see JobTrain’s Annual Report

Our 2014 Report to Stakeholders is a new report.  Here we explain in more detail how JobTrain works, why it uses the model it does, why it is unique, where it fits in the workforce landscape, and how it allocates its resources. 

Click here to see the JobTrain’s 2014 Report to Stakeholders

Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback.

Thank you so much for your continued partnership to help ensure those most in need succeed. 

Nora Sobolov

Executive Director