REBECCA CARRASCO

LUTCHER – The federally-funded Workforce Investment Act program is on hand to help the River Parishes community, especially during economically troubled times, to help unemployed people get jobs and job training. The Workforce Investment Act program, which started in 1998, is a revamped version of the Job Training Partnership Act. The program’s objective is to help everyone who needs and wants it. “It’s a new concept,” explained St. James Parish coordinator E.J. Dumas Jr. “I think it’s good when you talk about the universality of it, the fact that you get more people involved. Anybody has access to the system.” The “One-Stop Centers,” as the WIA calls them, are conveniently located at 471 Central Ave. in Reserve, 737 Paul Maillard Road in Luling and 2287 Texas St. in Lutcher, and there to serve residents free of charge. “This program went from a training-first organization to a work-first organization,” Dumas said. Under the old JTPA system, he said, “If an individual was interested in training, we would make an objective assessment and determine what their needs, attitudes and abilities were. Then that person would generally go to a school of their choice, only if they passed an assessment test, which showed they met the level of that school.” The pyramid is reversed under the new program, Dumas added. “An individual comes to us, and we try to find him or her a job first. The system is comprised of three layers of services – core services, intensive services and training,” he said. Core services are where a certain level of activities take place and where individuals become participants themselves, Dumas said. “The core services are there when these individuals come into the office,” he said. “We have a one-stop operator right now, located in the job and career resource room, that actually works with them. They can come in and have access to the computer that is Internet-based and have access to state, local, and national job bank so that a job search can be done on their own.” Once an individual finds a job through a job bank service, such as the Louisiana Job Bank, “We would get in touch with the job service, find out the particulars about that job and set up that individual for an interview,” Dumas explained. “Right now,” he added, “we are in the process of writing policies to define when an individual actually moves from one of these levels to the other.” If, for instance, a person was unsuccessful in obtaining a job after several interviews, the one-stop operator or a case manager would determine that individual needed more intensive services in order to get a job. “Then we would move that individual to what we call intensive services,” Dumas said. “We would work with that individual further so that an objective assessment of job skills could be made, along with career counseling, trying once again to see what that person’s abilities and aptitude are in order to match that individual with a job.” If a person is again unsuccessful in getting a job, then the individual is moved into training. After training, hopefully that individual will be able to find employment. Training is provided by a software package called Plato Pathways, designed as a computer tutorial that can increase an individual’s skills in reading, math and language. “This software can move a person from sixth grade to first level college. Again, no one is pushing you, you go at your own speed,” Dumas said. Dumas described another difference between the old JTPA and the new WIA, suggesting a person has to get to the point of self-sufficiency. “If we put someone in a job and that job does not meet a self-sufficiency guideline, then we have to work with that person, we try to encourage that individual to go further in terms of schooling or on the job training,” Dumas said. This allows a person to increase their skills level, thus making it possible for him or her to move up and be able to survive without any help from anyone else. The WIA works with the private industries and other businesses from the public sector. But Dumas suggested the government feels if it is driven by the private businesses rather than the public, what happens is “you get a better match of training verses employment out there.” “The whole system is a matching process,” Dumas said. “You want to match training with the unemployment.” Dumas said individuals should participate in the program before deciding they cannot be helped.