MCSC
signs on for life
Good
just isn't good enough for the Milwaukee Community Service Corps.
The
12-year-old agency has spent the majority of its history helping
at-risk young adults from the Greater Milwaukee area earn GEDs,
train for future employment and find work. The corps has traditionally
focused on real-world training, sending crews of workers into
the market for jobs ranging from landscaping to construction for
public and private owners.
It's
a system that has served the corps and its participants well.
But in the last year, the agency decided to take its program to
the next level.
"We're
trying to produce individuals who are competent and capable, a
person who is polished around all edges," said Chris Litzau,
executive director of the Milwaukee Community Service Corps. "We
continue to tweak our program as we find ways to add value to
individuals, so when they leave, they add value to their employers."
It's
one thing, Litzau said, to prepare people for a life of employment,
but it's another battle entirely to prepare them for life. With
that challenge in mind, the Milwaukee Community Service Corps,
starting in February, unveiled a three-pronged strategy aimed
at creating fully rounded individuals armed with occupational
training and the knowledge to manage both their personal and professional
lives.
"In
its most infantile form, anybody can jump into the job-training
industry," Litzau said. "An employer wants people who
can think on their feet and problem-solve, and that doesn't come
from just teaching someone how to put up drywall."
But
it can come, the corps figured, from the Education Program for
Credentialing for Hire, the Hard-Hatted Women Building Trades
Initiative and the Business Link Externship Program.
The
Milwaukee Community Service Corps' new education program emphasizes
personal finance and credit repair, life-skills development, drivers'
license attainment, GED preparation, industrial education, 40-Hour
Hazardous Waste Operations and Lead Abatement Certification, pre-apprenticeship
preparation and AmeriCorps Education Scholarships. That's a long
list of goals for one program, but Litzau said it supports the
corps' overall direction.
"We're
building on an overlap for cross-sector employment, and it's a
much more comprehensive approach to the development of the individual,"
he said. "Just because you're a great carpenter, if you don't
have the basics of living, then you have an individual who is
very one-dimensional."
The
Hard-Hatted Women Initiative takes the same facets of the education
program but gears them specifically toward women. For the first
time in its history, the corps this year outfitted an all-female
crew in hopes of creating confidence for future employment and
peer support during training.
"It
offers benefits of retention, motivation and customization, and
through this, we've been able to give women a safe harbor to develop
skills," Litzau said. "The number of women coming in
has risen significantly since we started the program."
With
training and education covered, the corps turned its attention
to an externship program. Litzau said that with every new skill,
a participant's employment options widen, and after six months
in the Milwaukee Community Service Corps, trainees are placed
with various companies for full-time, on-the-job training.
The
corps covers wages and insurance, but the trainees report directly
to the company.
"All
of a sudden, we've developed a big universe of employers willing
to work with our trainees," Litzau said. "We're marrying
up the capacity of the individual in the program with the marketplace.
Before the business link, it was a shotgun approach; a broad,
untargeted, unfocused placement program for our graduates."
With
its new range of programs, the Milwaukee Community Service Corps
has been able to enhance its best characteristics while going
deeper to prepare people for a complete life, Litzau said.
"This
has all been fermenting, but the rubber has really hit the road
this year," he said.
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