Working As A Job Coach at the Employment Center

    Tonight I am thinking of all the people we have worked with at the Employment Center, and the experiences we have had over the past six months.

Here are some people we have worked with that stand out in my mind:
    One man in his early sixties has been a practicing Family Therapist, but his wife died last year, and he retired,  and now he wants to do anything just to get out of the house because he is so lonely, but he doesn't really know what he wants to do.
     A mother with a two year old son was living in a shelter because her husband was in prison, but she needed a job because she could only stay in the shelter for a certain length of time.
     Another mother of three whose husband tricked her into taking a week's "time-out" to stay with her grandmother, and then took her to court and accused her of abandoning the family, and he was awarded the children and SHE has to pay him some "child support" because he doesn't have a good job.
    A young man who is very ambitious, but has a very obvious speech defect which causes him to speak very slowly, and deliberately so it takes him a long time to say what he wants to say.
 
    I could go on and on. The thing I realize is that working at the Employment Center has helped me understand how really blessed I am. I still have my spouse, I didn't have to go out in the work-force while I was raising my family, and I still have the health to serve others, and we have the means to take care of our needs.

      I also feel gratitude that even though we see SO many problems, we are usually able to help them--we have the tools, the resources and the training. Otherwise, it could be very daunting. However, we have to be patient--these kind of results take time. For example:

    The man who doesn't know what he wants to do went home with articles to  help him learn the steps to making this kind of job decision, as well as several job leads in a possible area of interest,  and he will come back for help in interviewing techniques when he decides what he wants to look for--but we also gave him an hour of our time just to listen to him so he could talk through his indecision, loneliness, uncertainties etc.

    We contacted the Bishop of the mother who was living in a shelter, and he and the people at the shelter helped her find a job in a call center, and now we are helping her get registered in a Community Action program called "Circles" where they help us provide a circle of support for these difficult cases so they can move forward in their lives and move out of poverty.

     We gave the mother of three several job leads and taught her how to present herself and she was able to find a job at a pre-school, and later when they promoted someone into her job, we helped her find work-at -home opportunities so that she can continue to take care of her children, and her grandmother. We also linked her up with a woman we knew in our ward who has been through a similar drama and they are now friends, and she has someone to talk to who understands.

     The young man with the speech problem has done everything we have suggested, practiced interview techniques, targeted his resume to the kind of job he really wants, contacted companies and found a job that he is very good at, but which is not exactly what he would like to do as a career. So we will continue to call him and give him personal help until he gets the confidence to go after the career he really wants.

    It is challenging, but rewarding and as I said working with people helps me realize how blessed I am to be able at this age to have the health and the opportunities to still be making a contribution and hopefully making a difference in someone's life.