LOAVES AND FISHES MINISTRIES, INC.

Opening Doors

Many of our clients are out of work due to problems with substance abuse, mental illness, lack of education or stable family life, all of which contribute to their current situations.  Our Opening Doors program is a natural outgrowth of our existing services that attempt to help individuals move beyond crisis intervention and into economic independence.  We have a tremendous ability to connect with a large number of individuals from our client population and get them registered immediately for this employment skills training program.  Our greatest challenge continues to be the transient nature of our population, and the inability on the part of some well-intentioned clients to make class times, or remember appointments, etc.  These individuals are plagued by a variety of problems that hinder their ability to stay on track.  These difficulties often make it almost impossible for our clients to pursue their goals, even when they desperately want to succeed.  We are doing our best to overcome these challenges by maintaining stronger follow-up with clients, increasing our one-one-one job searches and making more of the training individualized to best address client need.

Opening Doors helps make clients aware of the CT Department of Labor One-Stop Centers, where they can receive individualized training and case management in their job search.  In addition to helping clients become aware of opportunities at the One-Stop Centers, we offer on-site classes in ESL, computer literacy, life skills and employment skills for registered clients. We conduct on-line job searches with individuals in our computer classroom.  The results include helping individuals into the program; getting them the training they need for employment, and then helping them find and retain those jobs.  Core competencies have been designed for each class in conjunction with Capital Region Education Council personnel, to ensure that our clients meet measurable standards and that we achieve consistency in teaching.

Our newest component of the program, the “Jobs Link” offering, generates a tremendous amount of new clients, as well as returning clients who want to update their resumes and/or obtain new job postings.  We are currently making an average of 7 appointments each week, and clients keep these appointments at a 70% rate.  “Job Link” provides direct interaction with clients in the soup kitchen every Wednesday, providing current job postings pulled from the DOL web site weekly.  Participants must first register for Opening Doors, and then are able to get appropriate job listings, make appointments for resume work and on-line job searches, as well as to apply to on-line postings.  In the first months this offering was available, we saw almost 20 individuals in the office; over the last three months, we saw 31 clients for on-line job searches and resume work.

We began the Opening Doors program in fall of 2003, and are now successfully completing our third year of the program.   During the three quarters of the grant year just completed, Loaves & Fishes worked with 118 individuals, who all received skills assessment.  Employment readiness training was provided to 47 individuals; 10 clients progressed through our ESL class, and 87 individuals received job search services.  Of these, 14 have been placed in jobs.   We feel very positive as we assess this program after ¾ of this grant year—the program has been beneficial to our clients who are motivated to look for work.  The anticipated outcomes include helping individuals into the program, getting them the training they need for employment, and then helping them find and retain those jobs. 

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