Building Bridges to Family-Supporting Jobs.

Jobs for the Future (JFF) has identified the following best practice programs that support what is known to work best in moving women into family-supporting employment: (1) Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kansas, trains welfare recipients to work as sheet metal assemblers while providing a support services counselor and support for child care and housing; (2) Oakland Community College's Advanced Technology Program provides welfare recipients with 20-week training cycles that are custom-designed for major local information technology employers and include 4-week paid internships with participating employers; and (3) Wildcat Service Corporation's Private Industry Partnership (PIP) program helps move women from welfare into private-sector employment with large financial service employers. All three programs prepare women for jobs with family-supporting incomes. JFF also partnered with the PIP program's founder to design Origin LLC, which will reverse the typical sequence of most employment programs in that it will start by helping employers identify business problems they can solve through improved human resource practices and will then offer job preparation customized to those employers' needs and determine and provide customized training for positions that can be filled by non college graduates. Origin LLC will establish up to eight New York sites and sites in at least five other large cities. (MN)