Cleveland Works
David B. Roth, Executive Director
Roberta A. Shears, Executive Assistant
812 Huron Road SE, Suite 800
Cleveland, Ohio 44115
(216) 589-9675
(216) 566-6980 fax

Cleveland Works does just two basic things, says Roberta Shears: "We train people, and then we get them jobs." Coming up on its tenth year of operation as a Cleveland-based job readiness, preparedness and training program, it's built a remarkable track record of achieving both of those goals very well.

Working on the basis of a simple premise, as so many model self-reliance programs do, Cleveland Works recruits jobless welfare recipients receiving Aid to Families With Dependent Children; it screens them, provides brief but intense job-readiness training followed by more specific training in specific marketable skills, then works with local employers to match graduates to existing jobs, and continues to stick with them to make sure they succeed and stay on the payroll once hired.

Based on records from the time that David Roth took over a for-profit operation and turned it non-profit in 1986, Cleveland Works trained nearly 4,000 people through the end of 1983, and placed nearly half of them -- 1,763 in total -- into non-subsidized, full-time jobs with health benefits. The average entry wage over that period was $5.89 per hour for adults, rising to an average of $6.21 in 1983. Its graduates stay on the job, too, showing retention rates of 89 percent after three months, 83 percent after six months, and fully 75 percent after a year.

The Cleveland Works program begins with recruitment, via word of mouth and public-service announcements. Applicants sign up for a daily orientation, then meet one-on-one with a staff member for screening.

Successful applicants (generally, those with work experience or the equivalent of at least a ninth-grade education) then attend a four-week Job Readiness Workshop focusing on basic education and job-seeking skills, including resume preparation, job seeking and interviewing as well as life-management and personal finance, as well as basic math, English, GED and legal rights and responsibilities. Upon completion of that course (which is extended to eight weeks for youths and young men ages 18-25 in Cleveland Works' separate Beat The Streets youth program), students go into specialized job training in courses ranging from typing to computers, nursing assistant, emergency medical technician and food service.

In the next step, Job Matching, staff marketers solicit job orders from regional employers -- more than 600 of which have hired graduates -- and match them with the strengths and abilities of individuals in the training program to set up interviews. Cleveland Works insists on sending its graduates only to full-time jobs paying above minimum wage with full health benefits.

Even after hiring, every graduate is assigned a Corporate Representative/Counselor to follow up and act as a mentor and liaison with the employer to help deal with any problems that may crop up on the job and to help ensure retention.

The organization's Legal Services staff of two lawyers is also ready to help students deal with any legal problems that may interfere with their ability to work; and Cleveland Works partners with a Head Start center in the same building to provide a safe environment for youngsters from 3 to 5 while Mom is in training.

"Eighty percent of the families Cleveland Works has helped off welfare have never returned to the rolls," Director Roth says in the group's brochure. "The only way we can continue to take families from 'hell to heaven' is if the necessary resources and funds exist in order to meet the overwhelming demand."

With a staff of 30 (of which one-third are former clients), Cleveland Works gets a lot done on a $2.4 million annual budget; but deep cuts in the portion of its funding from Cuyahoga County have forced layoffs and cutbacks this year, demonstrating that even the most effective self-reliance programs aren't immune to the whims of local-government funding.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

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