CAREERCATCHERS INC
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Mission Statement
Since 2007, CareerCatchers (CC) has provided one-on-one sustained guidance to over 2,500 low-income and otherwise disadvantaged clients seeking careers with upward mobility. CC’s mission is to provide individualized employment and job-skills counseling to ensure stable employment; identify and encourage participation in training programs; and enhance self-esteem and foster empowerment. The goal is to support the clients as they move out of poverty with a strategy of counseling, training, community and employer partnerships, to provide a path to escape from continuously working in minimum wage, dead end jobs. CareerCatchers uses a personalized and multiple-touch- point approach similar to that used by professional career coaches. Clients receive numerous one-on-one sessions, participate in weekly Job Clubs and Empowerment Workshops, attend other in-house training, and receive tutoring for various skills building training. Services include career planning; goal-setting; skills evaluation; access to funds for skills training; resume and interview preparation; job search; and job retention support. CC makes a difference in clients’ lives by providing them with equal access to community resources, and empowering them toward self-sufficiency. CareerCatchers’ services are critical to closing the poverty gap in Montgomery County, MD. Clients reap benefits from long-term job retention support and job skills evaluation, with step-by-step guidance for meeting their short- and long-term career goals.
About This Cause
On average, 95% of the clients that CareerCatchers’ serves are residents of Montgomery County (MC), Maryland, USA. The majority of clients live in Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, Rockville, and Germantown. Clients span the non-mutually exclusive groups of domestic violence victims, homeless, foreign-born/immigrants/refugees, those with disabilities, low-income earners, single parents, the previously incarcerated, youth aging out of foster care, and disconnected youth. On average, 76% clients are women, 88% BIPOC; 56% are between the ages of 30-49, and 52% are born outside the U.S. Gender, age, ethnicity and race percentages have remained stable over time. The economic and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic brought many new challenges to the community, and especially to the clients CareerCatchers serves. Clients face a multitude of barriers, such as lack of health care, transportation, and child care; limited access to technology; and crowded living conditions. Due to COVID, an unprecedented number of women left the labor force while employers are struggling to fill vacancies. Women in MC have stayed out of the workforce for many reasons including economic uncertainties from surging COVID cases; fear that school/daycare centers will close again; lack of transportation; and the high cost of childcare. These factors conspire to make it hard for employers and workers alike. CareerCatchers has responded to client needs throughout the pandemic. CC has worked to get their clients back into the labor market. They help clients understand the need to be vaccinated, apply for childcare vouchers to be work-ready, solve transportation barriers, and provide job retention support. Clients are actively engaged in making decisions, setting strategic directions, and in other ways that are integrated into the services: working with each client in multiple, intense one-on-one sessions; creating an Individual Employment Plan focused on the client’s self-described short and long term goals; advocating directly with employers to give clients the same access to jobs as those with large and deep social networks; and supporting clients in maintaining their jobs by listening to their work-related struggles and successes. CC’s direct career counseling services and training consists of four programs all of which work to advance the economic/financial security of Montgomery County residents including BIPOC individuals in the Greater Washington region: • The Domestic Violence (DV) Program, helps DV victims obtain financial self-sufficiency from their abusers, supporting the whole family’s long-term safety. • The Homeless Shelter/Transitional Housing/Low-Income Housing Program helps low-income families and individuals from various homeless and low-income housing program find career paths. Partners for this program include the following nonprofits and government agencies: Stepping Stones Shelter, The Dwelling Place, Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, Montgomery Housing Partnership, Housing Opportunities Commission, and Wells Robertson House. This program is growing the fastest due to the large number of referrals from a 2021-2023 Montgomery County Government Health and Human Services unsolicited contract, serving Rapid Rehousing and homeless clients. • The Direct Access Services Program serves individuals seeking services who are not covered under any existing grant or contract. Clients are charged a sliding-scale copay. Unlike other clients who are referred and whose services are paid for under existing grants and contracts, Direct Access clients learn about the program through word of mouth and reach out for help. The program grows annually, with no marketing -- evidence of the need for services like this in the community. • The Learning Community Program (LC) is an important collaborative effort, in which CareerCatchers leads other workforce development organizations in the community in sharing ideas, learning best practices, and increasing expertise in helping disadvantaged clients find meaningful employment. LC provides training and support to staff of other workforce development-focused organizations, to increase their expertise. We share best practices in career counseling for disadvantaged populations and BIPOC, including immigrants. In 2021, CareerCatchers continued the monthly meeting with Interfaith Works, Catholic Charities, Case de Maryland, and Identity workforce development teams. All partners have collectively observed that it is increasingly difficult to assist individuals who lack work authorization find employment after COVID-19. The goal is to collaborate on solutions/best practices assist these individuals. In March 2020, CareerCatchers (CC) quickly adapted to the shutdown and new situations created by the COVID-19 pandemic so they could continue to provide the high level of direct career counseling services to their clients. Overall, demand for CC services has risen exponentially because their clients have been disproportionately negatively affected by the pandemic. CC saw 800 clients in 2020, an increase of over 250 individuals from 2019. This large increase in clients in 2020 came from the EARP (166) program and unemployment claim assistant (112). While the EARP program ended in 2020 CareerCatchers still serves over 800 clients per year, serving 883 clients in 2022. In response to COVID-19, we increased outreach to clients using virtual platforms. We also added new services, including: • developing ongoing relationships with local and national employers to advocate for clients and helped them get placed in position; • matching community volunteers with clients to enroll them into online training classes, managing around 60 volunteers a year; • offering virtual skills classes, taught by community volunteers; • establishing an ongoing monthly Learning Community, since 2021, developing best practices around helping individuals without proper work documentation find employment; • developing a weekly curated email blast with information on CareerCatchers’ programs, available jobs, training and scholarship opportunities and community resources available to help clients. Clients on the staff and board inform the type and delivery of services. Clients’ feedback is also collected from Job Club, Empowerment Workshop, and online training classes surveys. This feedback rates content for usefulness, applicability, speaker’s performance, and handouts. The programs are highly rated by attendees and the results of the survey are used to adjust future sessions. Topics of the workshops are suggested by the attendees. Seventy-five to -100% of CC’s constituents self-identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. The organization is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In 2021, the Board and staff adopted the following Diversity and Inclusion statement: To support a full productive life for all with whom we come in contact, CareerCatchers champions policies and practices which empower a just, inclusive and equitable nation and recognize the dignity of all individuals. Our vision, programs, and mission build on the core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We believe in being compassionate to all individuals. This belief informs our actions, including creating a racially equitable environment, and a feeling of inclusion and belonging for all of our clients, staff, volunteers, and board members. In 2015 we incorporated a cloud-based Client Relationship Management System into our work to help us more effectively and efficiently track clients, invoice our third-party payers, measure and manage outcomes. Many of the achievements in 2020-21 resulted from response to client requests and the needs that emerged during COVID and the unemployment crisis. A counselor was recruited to help clients file Unemployment Claims during the botched implementation of the Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (FPUC) program. CC stepped in to help those without personal computers or internet access apply for jobs and benefits and added a weekly Empowerment Workshop for those who said they needed more support to deal with the isolation of the pandemic. The organization also started a weekly email blast, sent to clients and partners, with a curated information. A Learning Community was created with Interfaith Works, Catholic Charities, Casa de Maryland and Identity, that meets monthly to discuss best practices in helping undocumented clients find meaningful work. CC has been recognized for its dedication to providing personalized comprehensive vocational services. • Nonprofit of the Year, City of Gaithersburg, July 2015 • Henry L. Dixon Community Action Awards, May 2015 • Ike Leggett Citation of Appreciation, May 2015 • Award for helping the homeless from U.S. Representative Chris Van Hollen, 2011 • CC is part of the Montgomery College team that was awarded a two-year MD EARN grant in 2015