NEWPORT – Beginning next month, students in Dr. Arlene Nicholas’s “Service Learning for Management” classes will work as career mentors for local unemployed adults in a program designed to help them re-enter the workforce.
Child & Family’s “Homemaker Certification Program,” supported by a $60,000 Grant from the Workforce Partnership of Greater Rhode Island, will run through June 2011.
The free program will train and certify area adults with limited English-speaking or educational levels for future employment in the growing homecare field. It will also expose participants to a range of more advanced jobs in the home health care field through on-going employment counseling.
Nicholas, assistant professor of Business Studies & Economics at Salve Regina, worked with Emily Fowler, Child & Family Homemaker Training and Certification Program Director, to secure the grant, made possible through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding from the Governor's Workforce Board of RI.
As part of this grant, the Aquidneck Island Adult Learning Center will provide contextualized learning in which all classroom learning is linked to future work in the homecare field.
Salve Regina students will work with program participants in both the fall and spring semesters on campus (computer usage) and at Child & Family’s Middletown location.
In addition to weekly career mentoring with Salve students, program participants will receive 20 hours of formal, homemaker instruction at Child & Family; five hours of job shadowing with a certified Child & Family homemaker; job development and placement assistance from a Child & Family job coach; and guaranteed job interviews with New Care and All About Homecare through partnership agreements.