Making a path to change
- March 25, 2014
- / Shannon Nickinson
- / community-dashboard
Shavette Shoulders is a daughter of Truman Arms who came home to show it could be done.
“Home is where the heart is,” Shoulders says. “I just wanted to come home.”
Shoulders, who served as an operations specialist for three years in the U.S. Navy in Norfolk, Va., returned to Pensacola with her husband and her daughter, now 3, to finish her master’s degree in social work at the University of West Florida.
Shoulders is an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer who over the next several months will help senior citizens navigate the online Veterans Administration world through a partnership with Pathways For Change.
“Right now we are trying to promote that we’re doing e-benefits,” Shoulders says. “All of the elderly men and women veterans who can’t navigate online, I’m trying to provide them with services that we can do here for free.”
Pathways founder and CEO Connie Bookman says the work Shoulders will do is part of a concerted effort to tap into Pensacola’s military community both in terms of providing services the VA does not, and in expanding her program’s ties to volunteers with military background.
[caption id="attachment_211" align="alignright" width="150"]
Pathways founder and CEO Connie Bookman and Shavette Shoulders.[/caption]
“What we do best is to fill in the gaps,” Bookman says. “You’ve got the VA; it’s huge, and they offer a ton of stuff, but what are they not offering…. Our idea is spouses who might only be here a year. it’s difficult finding a job when you know you’re going to leave in a year, but they sure can volunteer and we have a lot of opportunities to volunteer.”
Enter Shoulders and the other Americorps volunteers on the team.
“Think of it like this: You’re a World War II veteran’s wife and he’s died and he’s handled all (the paperwork), and you don’t have a computer, now what do you do?” Bookman says. “Shavette is building a network this summer of AmeriCorps members who will be stationed here (Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and they will (help).”
Bookman says U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller’s office worked with them to help create the idea. Miller’s spokesman Dan McFaul said the office helped Pathways get a grant to help fund the program, which will fill a sorely needed role.
“The VA system is not always the most friendly user interface,” McFaul says.
In addition to the outreach in the military community, Pathways is building upon its mission of helping families in need through a new vocational program.
Pathways just received its license from the Commission For Independent Education as a post-secondary school. The first two vocational programs to launch are phlebotomy and certified nursing assistant and all tuition and expenses will be paid by Workforce Escarosa.
“Our hope is to engage people living near Baptist Hospital, living in poverty, to enroll and become gainfully employed,” Bookman says.
Bookman says she has partnered with Baptist Hospital to identify Pathways clients who would be interested in completing the hospital’s phlebotomy program.
“They only take people in the program they would hire,” Bookman says. “If someone wants to be a phlebotomist, we can pay their way at $600. We can do the job readiness skills here.”
By this summer a third vocational track should be up and running in a food preparation certificate. Bookman has an eye toward partnering with the new community center at Legion Field to be able to use that new facility from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for training.
“That’s a location that is walkable” for our clients, who mostly come from the neighborhoods near the Pathways Family Center at 2050 W. Blount St.
So, Bookman says, if a kid is in high school and wants to work at McDonald’s, and can go through the Pathways program, “he’s going to get a job over someone else.” She has talked with Susan O’Conner, who owns about five local McDonald’s franchises, who told Bookman she would give hiring consideration to graduates of the program.
The new programs dovetail with the Pathways Family Center’s mission of eradicating poverty.
“And how do you do that? Education and a job,” Bookman says. “And so why aren’t people educated? They drop out because of other issues. A lot of time its no family support, transportation, money, child care all that stuff. Our idea is to lower barriers wherever they are.”
Pathways For Change began in 2005 as a men’s residential drug treatment center, but Bookman, a social worker by training, knows the importance of treating the whole family when it comes to treating an addict. The family center offers GED courses with free child care.
“We always wanted a facility where families would also receive treatment and where our graduates could come and be part of a recovery hub,” she says.
In that spirit three-and-a-half years ago, Bookman started Pathways To Success for neighborhood kids in grades K-5. When the program began, most of the kids had failed kindergarten or first grade. There are 17 children in the program this year and most of them attend Global Learning or C.A. Weis elementary schools.
“Right now they’re all on honor roll but one and we’re working with that kid, so that’s awesome,” Bookman says.
In addition to tutoring and mentoring, Bookman says they are building a team this summer with rich programs for the kids, through the community garden, summer fun for four hours, so they don’t lose the academic progress they’ve made.
It’s all part of Pathways’ holistic approach to helping the whole family and includes job coaches to help clients make sure they can get a job and keep a job.
“There are some whose family might be saying are you sure you want to do that because that is threatening to some,” she says. “(The idea being) if you get outside what the norm is, we may lose you. And I’ve seen that in families; they don’t want to lose them.
“That’s why our goal is to embrace the whole family.”
Pathways founder and CEO Connie Bookman and Shavette Shoulders.[/caption]
“What we do best is to fill in the gaps,” Bookman says. “You’ve got the VA; it’s huge, and they offer a ton of stuff, but what are they not offering…. Our idea is spouses who might only be here a year. it’s difficult finding a job when you know you’re going to leave in a year, but they sure can volunteer and we have a lot of opportunities to volunteer.”
Enter Shoulders and the other Americorps volunteers on the team.
“Think of it like this: You’re a World War II veteran’s wife and he’s died and he’s handled all (the paperwork), and you don’t have a computer, now what do you do?” Bookman says. “Shavette is building a network this summer of AmeriCorps members who will be stationed here (Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.) and they will (help).”
Bookman says U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller’s office worked with them to help create the idea. Miller’s spokesman Dan McFaul said the office helped Pathways get a grant to help fund the program, which will fill a sorely needed role.
“The VA system is not always the most friendly user interface,” McFaul says.
In addition to the outreach in the military community, Pathways is building upon its mission of helping families in need through a new vocational program.
Pathways just received its license from the Commission For Independent Education as a post-secondary school. The first two vocational programs to launch are phlebotomy and certified nursing assistant and all tuition and expenses will be paid by Workforce Escarosa.
“Our hope is to engage people living near Baptist Hospital, living in poverty, to enroll and become gainfully employed,” Bookman says.
Bookman says she has partnered with Baptist Hospital to identify Pathways clients who would be interested in completing the hospital’s phlebotomy program.
“They only take people in the program they would hire,” Bookman says. “If someone wants to be a phlebotomist, we can pay their way at $600. We can do the job readiness skills here.”
By this summer a third vocational track should be up and running in a food preparation certificate. Bookman has an eye toward partnering with the new community center at Legion Field to be able to use that new facility from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for training.
“That’s a location that is walkable” for our clients, who mostly come from the neighborhoods near the Pathways Family Center at 2050 W. Blount St.
So, Bookman says, if a kid is in high school and wants to work at McDonald’s, and can go through the Pathways program, “he’s going to get a job over someone else.” She has talked with Susan O’Conner, who owns about five local McDonald’s franchises, who told Bookman she would give hiring consideration to graduates of the program.
The new programs dovetail with the Pathways Family Center’s mission of eradicating poverty.
“And how do you do that? Education and a job,” Bookman says. “And so why aren’t people educated? They drop out because of other issues. A lot of time its no family support, transportation, money, child care all that stuff. Our idea is to lower barriers wherever they are.”
Pathways For Change began in 2005 as a men’s residential drug treatment center, but Bookman, a social worker by training, knows the importance of treating the whole family when it comes to treating an addict. The family center offers GED courses with free child care.
“We always wanted a facility where families would also receive treatment and where our graduates could come and be part of a recovery hub,” she says.
In that spirit three-and-a-half years ago, Bookman started Pathways To Success for neighborhood kids in grades K-5. When the program began, most of the kids had failed kindergarten or first grade. There are 17 children in the program this year and most of them attend Global Learning or C.A. Weis elementary schools.
“Right now they’re all on honor roll but one and we’re working with that kid, so that’s awesome,” Bookman says.
In addition to tutoring and mentoring, Bookman says they are building a team this summer with rich programs for the kids, through the community garden, summer fun for four hours, so they don’t lose the academic progress they’ve made.
It’s all part of Pathways’ holistic approach to helping the whole family and includes job coaches to help clients make sure they can get a job and keep a job.
“There are some whose family might be saying are you sure you want to do that because that is threatening to some,” she says. “(The idea being) if you get outside what the norm is, we may lose you. And I’ve seen that in families; they don’t want to lose them.
“That’s why our goal is to embrace the whole family.”
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