by Markus Fortune
At reachAbility, we meet the clients we support where they are. With Pre-Employment Support, or PES, clients can navigate through resources, information, and community connections to support their journey to employment, their goals, or both. Resource and community navigation can be overwhelming; there is never just one option or solution for a barrier a client is facing. PES has a particular process to aid the client in figuring out exactly what they need, especially if that need is unknown at the time of their first meeting.
When beginning PES, a large portion of the meeting involves me learning about the barriers a client faces to employment or their goals. When I learn about these barriers, the client and I discuss options in the form of resources to remove these barriers to the point the client can access employment and achieve their goals more equitably. Sounds pretty simple, right?
Sometimes these barriers are simple to remove, but not every time. For the most part, barriers to employment or goals are often complex and require time and many different resources to address. I want to share with you a fictionalized example on how I address barriers with clients based on a number of real-world meetings I’ve had in my role as PES Navigator:
Sally is a mother of 2. Sally’s children are teenagers and don’t require as much of her attention as they used to. Sally now wants to re-enter the workforce, but it has been 10 years since she has had full time employment. She is on Income Assistance and money is tight. On the day of our first PES meeting, Sally enters my office and says “I need a job”. I tell Sally that it’s great that she knows where to start, but I want to ask her some questions about herself to get a better understanding of where she currently is in her life and the possible barriers she may be facing. Through talking with Sally, I learn that she does not have her GED/CAEC/High School Diploma, she is food insecure, and that she does not have interview/employment appropriate clothing. These barriers need to be addressed before her ultimate goal of employment can be reached.
This is a lot that happens in a 1 hour appointment. What I call this process is Resource Scaffolding. I hear the client’s initial need and work backwards from that. Essentially, I have the client tell me what they think they need and then say to the client “Okay, great, but what do you need before this happens?” That’s why I call it scaffolding; you cannot obtain gainful and meaningful employment if you are missing the essentials to buildyourself into the person who holds that position/employment.
Resource Scaffolding draws a great deal from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. If physical needs, the lowest and most essential level of Maslow’s Hierarchy are not being met (in the example, Sally noted being food insecure), then I provide the client with resources to build that part of the hierarchy up so that the client can move up through the next levels. The client almost literally builds themselves up through the use of resources.
Long story short, I would offer the following resources to Sally:
- Dress For Success so that Sally can get interview/employment appropriate attire, free of charge!
- Bedford Sackville Learning Network, Solutions Learning Network, or NSCC Adult Learning Program to get her GED/CAEC.
- For food security, I would send Sally information about The Mobile Food Market so that she can get the food she needs for herself and her children at a lower cost. I also send Sally information about the local Community Fridge and Cabinet; finally I send Sally the information for the Community Fridge on Spring Garden behind The Glitter Bean Cafe. Here, she can take what food she needs and leave anything that she does not.
All of this seems pretty straightforward to complete through an hour appointment, but sometimes this information could take more than one appointment to obtain. Some clients need more time to open up about their needs, and that’s okay. I always reassure my clients that these PES appointments can take more than one visit. Sometimes needs change to the point where in one meeting we are discussing resources for one need and in another meeting, we are pivoting to address completely different but more immediately pressing needs. This is a natural part of the process. We’re not rigidly adhering to a formula, we’re adapting a proven process to support the client with the strongest framework we can.
If I could say one thing to a current client or someone who is thinking about reaching out to us for any of our services it would be that I understand accessing our services or the services of like-minded agencies can be unnerving and frightful. It’s tough to admit sometimes that we can’t do everything on our own, and even tougher to ask for help from strangers. But we do our best to make that first visit as comfortable and low-pressure as possible, to show our clients new perspectives, and to help them discover new resources to help them move forward with their goals.
So, now that you have a rough idea of what I do with reachAbility, I have just one question for you: how can I support you?
Pre-Employment Support is a free service offered by reachAbility to any clients enrolled in employment or self-management programming, which is also free of charge. For more information visit reachability.org, write to us at info@reachability.org, or call 902-429-5878.
