This is a guest post by Miles Crawford, Regional Development & Operations Manager for DPI Staffing – Arkansas, which offers staffing services for both government and commercial clients throughout the state of Arkansas.
WATEP is a program more than ten years in the making. Like many things, it didn’t come about overnight.
It’s a multi-faceted program consisting of a weekly three-hour class that teaches goal setting, career navigation, with some light cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sprinkled in. It’s supported by a network of nonprofit organizations that provide on-the-job training opportunities for participants and mentorship. Adult Education works with them to increase literacy, improve basic education skills, and when necessary, helps students work toward their GED or gain occupation-specific training in areas like pharmacy technician, paraprofessional, or CDL.
Participants in WATEP are eligible for up to 40 hours of paid work per week. I use the term “work” deliberately because while they may not be on the job for the full 40 hours, the additional tasks that we pay them for – and expect of them – is still very much work. In WATEP, “work” includes hours spent in our weekly class, as well as time spent working at a nonprofit worksite, where they receive on-the-job training while providing meaningful service to the community. In addition, the program pays for up to 12 hours per week for participation in training courses or basic adult education classes. WATEP also pays participants for up to five hours each week spent working one-on-one with their case manager—solving for barriers like housing, childcare, transportation, or other personal matters that must be addressed for long-term success to take root. We’re not just giving people work—we’re giving them the infrastructure and support to rebuild stability in a way that actually lasts.
We also partner with the Arkansas Workforce Connections team, which can offer funding for in-demand career training and provide supportive services and resources to help participants succeed. Arkansas Rehabilitation Services provides job coaching and financial assistance for individuals with disabilities, including support for training and basic needs such as special equipment and accommodations. Restore Hope and 100 Families offer intensive case management to assist with a wide range of challenges—housing, childcare, DCFS cases, child custody, and more.
And then we have the support of our local judiciary—specifically the judges of Western Arkansas’s District Courts—who refer people to WATEP from their courtrooms. They work with us to potentially reduce court fines and fees, and in some cases issue lighter sentencing as a reward for successful completion of the program.
This program takes a village. It cannot be implemented or operated in a silo, as so many programs attempt to be. It only works because of the collaboration, commitment, and mutual buy-in of so many partners coming together around a common goal.
Why WATEP Was Created
WATEP was created out of a need. A long-running need. And a need that continues to grow in the U.S.—not just in Arkansas. It was created to assist a population that is stuck behind the proverbial eight ball, with so much stacked against them. The Herculean effort it would take for any one individual to overcome all of the challenges facing them would render success rates equivalent to that of winning the Powerball. Possible, sure. But likely? Not at all.
Over the two decades that I’ve been in the staffing industry, I’ve become growingly aware of—and frustrated by—the plight of so many job seekers who come into my office seeking employment. The reality of their situation is that, while they want to work, their life circumstances are not going to allow them to hold down a job.
Countless times I would attempt to place individuals in a job to give them a shot, only to have them drop out of the position within a week due to issues that continue to plague them, with no reprieve, in their personal life.
It’s no secret to those of us in the employment or workforce development world that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of individuals in the US who want to work but whose lives and personal circumstances are not stable enough to allow them the opportunity to hold down a job.
There may be underlying medical conditions they are facing—or someone they are a caretaker of is facing—with limited or no outside support. They may have children with no support structure in place that can assist with childcare responsibilities or be there to watch their kids if they get sick. They may have an unstable housing situation. Their vehicle is likely not reliable, yet they’re stuck between a financial rock and a hard place—unable to afford repairs yet not financially able to get a new vehicle.
Pair this all with the likelihood that they have a past life they are trying to escape—but characters or consequences of that past life continue to show up to derail the progress they’re working so hard to achieve. And on and on.
What’s at Stake
If we want to solve for our labor shortage in the U.S., we have to figure out how to reclaim this population into the workforce and into our communities.
If we want to solve for our rising rates of incarceration, we have to solve for the lack of opportunities afforded to individuals in certain socio-economic conditions. And if we fail the first time around, we have to then solve for the embarrassingly high rates of recidivism by transforming their time served into a rehabilitative—and not merely a punitive—experience.
If we want to solve for families in crisis, increasingly low test scores, increasingly high levels of school dropout rates, crimes of despair, declining birth rates, surging health care costs, and the number of Americans filing for disability and very unlikely to return to the workforce, and countless other issues, we have to find better ways of restoring hope and providing opportunities that these individuals can be successful in.
We Open the Doors
I honestly don’t know that I would be strong enough, if I found myself in the circumstances of many of our WATEP participants, to get myself out of the situations they live every single day. But I know that—with the right level of help, with the right village—we can structure programs to help these individuals overcome the myriad obstacles they face and get them back on a path that will once again bring them pride and give them a reason to continue to work hard. If they’re given the support they need to help them overcome their circumstances, many of these individuals become some of the best, most loyal workers their company has.
But I’m not Pollyannaish. I know not every one of these individuals will be successful. Not everyone we try to help will accept the help, or the responsibility that comes along with it.
The mission of WATEP isn’t to do the work for them, but rather to provide them with the support and guidance they need to be able to do the work themselves. We open doors for them to walk through, but it’s their responsibility to walk through those doors.
Why It’s Worth It
As anyone who has done social work, at any level, knows—it can get frustrating. It can get exhausting. There are times that you’ll be tempted to throw your hands up and scream into the void.
But for every one of those times, there is another time that you’ll struggle to fight back the tears—because you’re so proud of those participants who took full advantage of the support they were given, and they ran with it. And they ran to a better future—for themselves, for their children, for their families.
And every single time you get to play a part in that outcome, it makes it all worth it.
The Future
It is our goal to implement WATEP in every community that will welcome it.
The level of buy-in must be high. In Arkansas, we’re fortunate to have support from the highest levels of state, city, and county government; from Workforce to the Judiciary. Our leadership believes in this mission—and they’re choosing to invest in the success of their citizens statewide.
We’ve created the blueprint. A model that works. One that’s adaptable and can be implemented in cities across the country—if the leadership of that state or city is willing to champion it.
It starts with leadership.
It ends with hope.
