Region to receive $490,000 to fund jobs program

Grant will target young adults age 18 to 24 who have had contact with justice system

Hundreds of jobs are going unfilled in the Altoona area, and because of that, Blair County Commissioner Bruce R. Erb said he is supporting a new program to redirect the lives of young adults, age 18 to 24, who have had contact with the justice system so they can find employment and better their own lives.

Erb announced Tues­day that the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry has awarded a $492,509, two-year youth re-entry grant to the Southern Alleghenies Workforce Development Board.

The money will be funneled to the Goodwill of the Southern Alleghenies ReSTARt Program to provide services in Blair, Bedford and Cambria counties, he said.

The program will focus on younger inmates and others who have had contact with the justice system to prepare them for employment by helping them obtain their GEDs or high school diplomas, participate in a paid work experience or placement into available jobs and, in some cases, direct them to post-secondary educational opportunities.

Erb said the idea of re-entry services for inmates is not new in Blair County.

The county prison offers re-entry training and coaching through the American Rescue Workers Mission in Hollidaysburg and through Good­will, all in an effort to "positively impact and improve the employment futures of younger offenders," Erb said.

Erb, like others working with the re-entry effort, pointed out that local employers are searching for qualified workers -- a counterpoint to recent layoffs that made news during the last months of 2019.

"Employers are crying for workers," said Susan K. Whisler of the Southern Alleghenies Workforce Development Board, which also provides funds for CareerLink of Blair County, an agency that addresses many of the same issues that will be the focus of the grant announced by Erb.

People don't need to leave the area to find good jobs, Whisler stated.

She said the new program will provide case managers to aid young adults in their efforts to redirect their lives.

Education and job experience will be part of the program, she said. Goodwill has had a history of building relationships with young people through its past efforts to direct youths into the workforce.

She said the program hopes to address the employment needs of 50 young offenders between now and March 31, 2022.

Whisler said Goodwill has already started efforts to implement the re-entry effort.

The commanding officer of the American Rescue Workers in Hollidaysburg, Victor La Valla, oversees the Blair County Prison effort and started a new class of three inmates this week.

La Valla said the inmates will come to the Rescue Workers' building two days a week for 12 weeks.

They will go through a program designed to address their educational needs (there are five instructors for GED classes), experience Cognitive Training (through classes taught by employees of the county's Adult Parole and Probation Department) and independent living (the course La Valla teaches).

He said that cognitive training urges the inmates to explore "how to deal with things," for instance, to discover and deal with their "trigger points."

Volunteers conduct the classes at the American Rescue Workers' building, La Valla said.

He said the program has had good results, noting one inmate, a former addict, was able to land a job as a life-skills instructor and another obtained a good job with a communications company.

La Valla added however, "There have been some blatant failures."

He tells the inmates, "You are on a road. Everybody is going somewhere."

He asks them to consider, "The road you are taking, is it where you want to go?"

Some inmates find the required change in lifestyle -- for instance from drug dealer to employee -- difficult, but La Valla is not hesitant to state that a benefit of the lifestyle change "is you get to sleep in your own bed every night."

Goodwill currently provides a re-entry program for inmates in Blair County, but that particular effort is about to end and the new program put in place.

Goodwill Director Amy Horwath and the agency's re-entry specialist, Mindy Rickabaugh, emphasized the new program is for youthful inmates or youth who have had contact with the justice system.

It will provide case managers who will work with the clients every step of the way with the end goal "always to have them placed in employment or post-secondary education and training,'' according to Rickabaugh.

The participants will also be assigned mentors.

Using an analogy, she said it's like riding in a car. The driver is the client, the mentor is the navigator, "helping the individual stay on the road."

The idea is to help the clients overcome barriers to employment, she explained.