After a year in the planning, WorkWell is up and running. Building on valuable experience under our former program, CookWell, we retooled our job-training curriculum to include industries beyond food service. This new approach expands our mission, Working together to equip returning citizens with job skills, dignity and hope, by setting people up for careers in sectors of their own choice.
WorkWell was launched in April 2021, with a small program in Trenton offered in collaboration with Uplift Solutions of Philadelphia. The five-week course offered training in both workplace and life skills. Among other things, participants learned to build a resume, resolve conflict, and cope with trauma. The photo shows WorkWell staff, volunteers, partners, friends and graduates who gathered at the May 21 graduation ceremony.
Graduates were soon offered jobs. A less tangible but equally important outcome is the boost of confidence they received from a broad array of partners: Uplift trainers, United Way support personnel, WorkWell staff and volunteers, and graduation attendees who applauded them for their success and their speeches. Congratulations, graduates!
In the next cycle, scheduled to start in early fall, WorkWell hopes to increase the number of participants and cooperating employers.
