Job Training & Work Expierence

JOB TRAINING AND WORK EXPERIENCE PROGRAM

The Work-It-Out Pilot Project (WIO) efforts in the area of providing job training and work experience opportunities paid off. In collaboration with the Superior Court Juvenile Services and Seattle Parks Department we offered real work experience opportunities for at-risk youth on our school campus. Youth enrolled in this program were paid by the referring organizations.

How we helped in 2011: Sixteen (16) students received on-the job training & work experience opportunities on the 1.76 acre campus of WIO, through the Job Training and Work Experience Program. Students gained experience working as a team on a variety of outdoor environmental projects such as: grounds cleanup and landscaping, composting, planting, weeding, recycling, painting exterior building window wells and portable classrooms; to unpacking, learning to inventory, count and sorting of educational resources donated for the Community Collaborations Program (Educational Resource Fair).

A major achievement of the Job Training and Work Experience Program was outreach to the business community and local unions to collaborate around sharing their industry knowledge with our student population, and construct on-the-job training and apprenticeship opportunities for young people. We were encouraged by the willingness of businesses such as Puget Sound Electrical Apprenticeship, Microsoft, Hitachi Consulting Group, Build Urban, Rodda Paint, Rebuilding Together Seattle, Electrical Workers Minority Coalition, Coalition of Black Trade Unionist, Local 44, Communications Workers of America, Qwest, UFCW Local 21, GroundUp Organics, and others to step up and offer expertise and information about their industry, and to support their staff in volunteering time and talent to work with us to create a learning environment.