Eighteen year old Michelle is learning to
bag groceries at the Hannaford Supermarket. So is sixteen year old,
Alyssa.
They are both graduates of the First Jobs Academy, a program funded by
the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The program helps train kids in foster
care for summer jobs. It also trains managers in participating companies
on how to deal with young people who are in the foster care system.
"Employers over the past years of our operating tenure have found that
learning how to support youth in the child welfare system, understanding
their learning styles and how they communicate best and understand how
to train gradually towards an end rather then having the kid learn a
milllion things at once makes a huge difference," says First Jobs Rob
Franciose.
Franciose says children who grow up in foster care often move from one
home to another to another and the social skills needed in the workplace
are often lost in the shuffle. First Jobs Academy helps them learn those
skills.
It's those simple but important things, according to Alyssa.
"How to act around other people. What to wear. What you're going to be
doing," she says.
"What we see is kids who have gaps in social skills, those soft skills
that are necessary in employment, that a lot of people pick up naturally
or by modeling in their families of origin but these kids, because
they've been shuffled around so many tiems are often behing the curve in
picking up those soft skills," says...
Rob Franciose says a number of companies, including Hannaford and
Cabela's, have stepped up to participate in this program.
