Increasing Personal & Economic Independence through Employment

Women and men find the best possible job in the shortest possible time in JOBS NOW – a one week program that features individual assessment, job targeting, job search training, and job placement assistance. Job placement rate in 1999 was 80%.

Each year the JOBS NOW Job Fair matches over 40 employers with approximately 1,500 potential applicants from throughout the community.

Low-income women and their families escape welfare and poverty through the Strengthening Families program. In this long-term collaborative program, The Women's Center helps poor women with limited work experience:

  • Prepare for work and overcome barriers to employment through life skills and job success training, remedial education, and job skills training.
  • Find a job and go to work.
  • Advance in the labor market through post employment support .

The Strengthening Families program is provided from a number of service sites throughout the community:

  • The Women's Center Central Office - Hemphill Street
  • Near Northside Partners Council Offices
  • The Women's Center Arlington Office
  • Resource Connection

Back to Programs & Services
Rape Crisis & Victim Services
General Counseling Services

 

 

 

Significant Facts and Trends

  • Years ago, it was predicted that by the year 2000, 85% of new entrants into the labor market would be women, minorities and immigrants. We are there!
  • Nearly half of families headed by women with children under the age of 18 live in poverty.
  • Single mothers and their dependent children make up most of the poverty population. One of every five children in Texas is living in poverty.
  • Current unemployment statistics mask the reality that whole communities and categories of people, generally minorities and women, are still unemployed, underemployed and consigned to poverty.
  • The largest number of new jobs being created are part-time/no benefits jobs in the low-income service sector.
  • Experts link chronic unemployment to hunger, homelessness, family violence, drug abuse and crime including drug sales and gang activity.
  • Employers report serious basic skills deficiencies and lack of work ethic in a significant number of new employees, especially in entry-level jobs.
  • Studies show that a mother's reading level is the best predictor of her children's success in school.