Why should I use this program???

These past two days have been so busy they feel like their own separate week! Yesterday morning I went to one of the shelters to casually talk about how the program with Ready to Work was going so far. The meeting ended up being a wide assortment of people ranging from individuals who are ready for the WorkKeys test to people who have never stepped foot in CareerLink, and I honestly don’t think I could have prepared for a better group. All I did was sit there and asked/answered questions occasionally, but for the most part I just listened to them talk to each other about the program. Listening to them talk I realized that this was the best form of advertising for the program within this population, and that overall they loved the program so far. One of the gentlemen there kept asking why he should use this program, why he shouldn’t just get a job, and all of the other people who were almost done with the program tried to convince him how worthwhile the program really was. I really enjoyed talking with these men and hearing about their experiences.
Catherine showed up for WIN testing, although she was forty-five minutes late, and was just as enthusiastic as ever about the program. Unfortunately, Debbie did not show up or call. I called her later in the afternoon to follow up, and she apologized and told me she forgot. It is tough, because of everyone I am meeting with or have met with, she is the first person that I am not too confident about. I do not think she is motivated enough to stick with the program, which is upsetting, and I am hoping she proves me wrong. Catherine did really well on her WIN assessment though, and needs remediation only in math. She is very concerned about getting a job within 30 days, so hopefully we can work that out. Ironically, she did not show up for alchemy core this morning (although she did call to tell us she wasn’t coming, which shows that she is still motivated…) but Debbie did. Danielle also showed up, and we are going to meet with her early next week to discuss her plans with welfare and continuing the program.
This morning I met with Kenneth and David, my first male clients that I will be taking through the program! David was the unexpected one, but he seems so friendly and easy to work with that I am not too concerned about working with him. Kenneth is older, and I think he is going to be a handful. He works a little slower than most of the people I have worked with up to this point, and it took us a great deal of time to get through the paperwork, enrollment, and resume process. He is motivated enough, I do believe that, and should have no problems getting to his scheduled appointments. My concerns with him are that he will get extremely frustrated. He knows nothing about computers, at all, and since the majority of his learning will take place on the computer I imagine it will be fairly difficult. I am hoping to maintain his motivation and dedication to bettering his skills, although I think he will be my most exhausting case. I do believe that he is a hard worker, and he eventually would like to get training as a plumber, so hopefully we can work something out for him.
This morning during orientation I also saw a glimpse as to why some of the CareerLink staff may get frustrated after awhile. One of the ladies in orientation with us tried to start a fight over every detail of orientation with the administrator, other clients, and myself. She continuously mumbled under her breath about filling out paperwork, would not listen when I or the administrator tried to explain the process for creating a resume, and was getting frustrated before she even began the job search. Eventually the other clients were trying to comfort her, simply because it put everyone in an extremely uncomfortable position! I was very impressed with how the administrator handled the situation, and to be honest I can’t even imagine how frustrating it must be, dealing with that on a regular basis!