Gilroy
– Saint Joseph’s Family Center already provides emergency
services and healthful meals to the most needy Gilroyans.
Now the non-profit is doing even more, helping low-income
residents find employment or advance in the jobs they already
have.
By Lori Stuenkel
Gilroy – Saint Joseph’s Family Center already provides emergency services and healthful meals to the most needy Gilroyans.
Now the non-profit is doing even more, helping low-income residents find employment or advance in the jobs they already have.
“It is an employment services and job training and retention program,” said David Cox, St. Joseph’s executive director. “The idea is to … assist people with finding jobs, assist people with retaining those jobs, and connect them to resources to promote, or find a higher level of work.”
When local non-profit Familias Pueden ran out of funding in July and had to shut down after four years, a staff member temporarily joined St. Joseph’s to continue providing employment services.
At the beginning of this month, the agency brought on a new, permanent staff member who will develop the program in the coming months. Jeff Fishback said he is trying to spread the word to other agencies that St. Joseph’s has a new program under its umbrella of services.
“With St. Joseph’s Family Center already having a (high) profile in the community, we also are trying to get the word out to just our client base that already accesses some of our other services,” he said.
During the in-take process, Fishback will determine where the client is in terms of employment and his or her future goals for career development. If the client will be able to benefit from St. Joseph’s services, Fishback will begin to create a personalized program catered toward the individual’s goals and aspirations, he said.
St. Joseph’s will help the participant set up a long-term success program that would include practical steps to achieving job advancement, he said.
A next step would also be finding and connecting to training programs, if the person is interested in and available to participate. The non-profit will link with South County One-Stop job services center and the city’s community housing and development program, as well.
“If they have child care needs, we could avail them to that when they do training or employment,” Fishback said.
All this is at no cost – the only stipulation is that participants qualify as low-income. St. Joseph’s plans to focus specifically on Gilroy neighborhoods located east of Monterey Street, from First Street to Tenth Street.
Fishback, who moved to Gilroy from Nebraska, previously has worked in the non-profit sector with a fair housing program in Marin County, and spent six years in Mexico working for a community development program. He is fluent in Spanish and will offer employment services in both English and Spanish.
St. Joseph’s employment services will not end once a job or promotion is found, either:
“Our goal, ultimately, is to have them secure employment that pays a sustaining wage – a family sustaining wage – and to follow up on that, at least through nine months to a one-year time frame,” Fishback said.
Fishback said he’s hoping to start with a case load of about 50 people, with his sights set on expanding the program in the future.
