November 25, 2023 • 14 mins
VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA TEXAS SPECIAL PODCAST
Ericka English, Director of Marketing and Communications Volunteers of America Texas host VOA Community Conversations. Learn how the VOA Texas Dallas Pathways Program is ensuring justice impacted people find career paths that set them up for success.
Ericka English, Director of Marketing and Communications Volunteers of America Texas host VOA Community Conversations. Learn how the VOA Texas Dallas Pathways Program is ensuring justice impacted people find career paths that set them up for success.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:10):
Hello, and welcome to Community Conversations. I'm your host, Erica English,
Senior director of Marketing and Communications forVolunteers of America Texas. Joining us today
is Stephanie head As Rodriguez. She'sthe programs operation manager for VOA Texas,
and also Taylor Galvin, who isthe employment specialist for the VOA Texas Dallas
(00:30):
Pathways program. Thank you guys forjoining us today. Thank you so much
for us. Well, before weget started and into the conversation, I
do want to take a moment tothank our sponsored Niagara Conservation. Niagara provides
energy efficient toilets for our affordable housingprograms, in particular the Oaks, which
is in the Oakliffe neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. So thank you guys for
(00:52):
joining us today. Good morning,Thank you so much for having us today.
So Stephanie, tell us a littlebit again about what you do for
Volunteers of America Texas. Yes,as a program operations manager, I basically
help kickoff start grants and projects thatwe have funded recently. So one of
the biggest examples and one of thebiggest projects that I first started as a
program operations manager is getting a replicaor a duplicate of the Financial Opportunity Center
(01:18):
that we have successfully been in programmingfor a long time in Houston and getting
that started over here in Dallas andthen the DFW area. So the City
of Dallas has funded us with theCity of Dallas Pathways for re entry and
workforce related employment opportunities for people whohave been impacted by the justice system.
(01:42):
And I help kickoff start off thatgrant and get it up and running.
And like you said, we've hadthe Financial Opportunity Center down in Houston for
years and it's been wildly successful downin Harris County. Taylor, you new
to the team sort of at thispoint. Tell us how's it been coming
on and tell us what career pathsare available through the Pathways program. It's
(02:06):
been a whirlwind of excitement coming intothe program. It's been exciting watching it
grow expand building it from scratch andwatching it become what it is. There
are many different pathways available to ourclients. We have IT programs for security
the ones who do qualify for securitytype of IT jobs. We have culinary
(02:28):
certifications available. These are certification programsas opposed to bachelors or associate degree programs.
We have different things business management.A lot of people who want to
take charge of their careers based offof their backgrounds or their situations. It's
important to them to be able tobe in more leadership roles and take control
of the skills that they already haveobtained throughout their lifetime. And that's great
(02:53):
because we don't just want people towalk away with the job. We want
them to walk away with careers andskill sets that they can build on for
years to come. Can you identifyor just talk about a few of the
clients that you've come across and whatstands out to you the most about them.
I've had a lot of entrepreneurial typeof clients. I've had one lady
in particular, just recently who gota job at AT and T. She's
(03:16):
working in Richardson as one of thesales representatives. She's been doing well.
She's on her second month. It'sa well paying job, well above the
mount that was set for the minimumof how much the expectation is for them
to make and she's happy. She'sUnfortunately she couldn't come to the program today
because she's at work, but she'sdoing well. That's a good reason to
(03:38):
miss that program. And you know, I like the emphasis also on justice
impacted people because so many people haveworked really hard to alleviate the mandate to
check that box and with the stigmathat it brings to have to check the
box. Kind of expand on thatand maybe some of the challenges that justice
impact that people have had just lookingfor a job backgrounds. As always for
(04:00):
jobs, we all have to havethe background check, so that it's definitely
the stipulation. So what I've donea compromise is make sure to market for
these people. It's not about justbuilding those relationships and partnerships with the client,
but also go into businesses, youknow, becoming a reputable individual within
the community, like I have peoplewho have the skills that you need for
(04:21):
your position. I mean, thereare background requirements, but what I'm learning
is that it's a lot of aone on one, case by case situations
and that does make it a littlebit easier when they do have those type
of ways to kind of make thedecision on their own and step instead of
just strict rules. And that seemsto be very common. I guess post
(04:43):
COVID of having a little bit moreof that case by case situation. But
that has been a little bit ofthe restriction in the backgrounds. And you
bring up an interesting point because thecase by case basis, it just it
means that we have to do truecase management, right all these wrap around
service is that we may be ableto provide we won't know about them unless
we do true case management. Sojust kind of explain to people what that
(05:08):
means. True case management will requirejust digging into their background, what type
of things they need, like beingable to provide them different resources, because
just providing a job isn't enough.You have to be able to make sure
those transportation needs being met. Food, there's a lot of people who don't
have the food for they get thatjob. You know, you help with
(05:28):
bus passes, they might not havefood for lunch, or they might not
have food for their family. There'schildcare and situations where you know you have
to go back and make sure likeOkay, well do I have a contact
or o there some resources in thecommunity. Sometimes you do have to step
back doing true case management to see, okay, is this really feasible for
them to get this job. It'sa great job, makes a lot of
(05:50):
money, but in this current situationwith the current limited resources, is this
really realistic based off of where thisclient is at this point in time,
and so in order to do truecase management, I think it requires being
able to look around, provide thosewrap around services, have those partnerships in
the community to ensure that what theyneed or what they want. Even right
(06:15):
now we go over smart goals,when we talk about what the future looks
like, is realistic in that moment. Yeah, that's a great way to
set them up for success. Now, Stephanie, how has the employment landscape
kind of changed since COVID Taylor mentionedour pandemic, our recent pandemic, So
just kind of explained what it's changedover the last few years. Yeah.
(06:38):
Absolutely. I want to emphasize thatthere has been a big impact and a
lot of follow through from a lotof different agencies for their government, even
local government wanting to fund this typeof population and this type of work that
we're doing. They really want toprovide education resources and provide the credentialing,
(07:00):
and so the increase of funding hasreally been tremendous over the last few years.
Even though the landscape of the industryhas changed in the sense that it
has become more remote and more customerserving in the sense, but there have
been a lot of opportunities and thata lot of our clients have been able
to take and make fit for theirown individual cases. But at the same
(07:27):
time, the funding that's allowed forthese types of programs to bring the wrap
around services that the Dallas Pathways programand our new and our new program provide
has really been emphasized by a lotof different granting grant funding opportunities, and
we have been able to get alot of different partnerships who have been on
(07:50):
board and trying to impact that specificpopulation of justice impacted individuals and trying to
provide them those wrap around services inthese new industry. An example of a
type of different jobs that the federalgovernment or even different types of funding pools
have brought are more green jobs orjobs that emphasize a more impactful opera opportunities
(08:18):
or more impact on climate change.I hear I heard the term green jobs
a lot over the past few years. Right, I'm thinking the auto industry
mainly, but I was going tomention, certainly then there's room for everyone,
right, other organizations in this spaceto provide the same types of service
because the need is so great.So if there are other organizations who are
(08:41):
watching and wondering where can I goto get this information on these funding streams,
where might they look? So it'sit's really important that you check your
even your local small business centers wherethey provide a lot of your loans and
granting opportunities. So this specific grantthat we have through the City of Dallas
from the Small Business Administration, andthey provide a lot of resources not only
(09:05):
to different nonprofits, but to thecommunity members and citizens themselves to further improve
and become more self sufficient in whateverendeavors that they have. A lot of
other resources come from the state governmentfrom Health and Human Services. They provide
a lot of granting opportunities that areemployment or health related that impact the lives
(09:31):
of the people that we're serving.And then finally, big on the especially
with the population that we serve,the re entry population that we serve,
the Bureau of Justice administration has beena big resource as well as the Department
of Labor. We have a lotof or we have a grant through the
Department of Labor for our homeless individualswho are getting back and getting reintegrated into
(09:56):
our community. I'm glad you mentionedthose other populations because certainly we focused a
lot on justice impacted people today,but we know that VOA does so much
more and reaches so many other vulnerablepopulations. So if you can just kind
of expand on some of the otherpopulations we serve in the realm of workforce,
yeah, absolutely so. One ofthe biggest ones that we have in
(10:16):
DFW is for our veterans who areexperiencing homelessness. We have our Homeless Veterans
Reintegration Program or HVRP, and thathas really started I think in twenty seventeen
and has progressed. We had itin Houston and we also have it here
in DFW, and a lot ofour programming and fundamentals of the Dallas Pathway
(10:39):
programs come from the HVRP program becausewe've been serving that population for a little
bit longer. But we also servethe re entry population in other services and
other service areas. So we includeour halfway houses where we provide integration services
(11:01):
that they also include job readiness andfinancial literacy classes there as well as the
job placements and the just re entrycase management. That is very important for
them as well as substance use treatmentwhere we have where we serve multiple multitude
of different types of clients get backand get ready to really become active members
(11:28):
of the community. Either one ofyou can answer this question, But what's
the goal? Do you guys havea target goal of how many people you
plant to serve over a number ofyears. So the target goal really for
the City of Dallas Pathways program isover two years we impact sixty individuals,
so thirty over each year, andthat is with placing them and giving them
(11:52):
impactful, meaningful career pathways not justa job, and that I think think
we've been doing really well. Westarted kind of late in the game in
twenty twenty two, but so farwe've impacted about thirty or thirty one individuals
with job placements and jobbing opportunities.And the goal really is to reduce recidivism,
(12:18):
to help them not go back intothe old habits, and break that
cycle of poverty that we really hearabout and talk about a lot, and
then really have a purpose in lifeand not just again not just a job
or employment, but a career thatthey can move upward and have upward mobility
so on the personal front, Taylor, how has it been for you personally
(12:43):
to see people achieve these goals andto go off and start on these career
paths and opportunities they may not havehad otherwise. It's been great. I've
noticed it's been a lot of wordof mouth going on, which is always
a good sign. You know,you can really tell how much impact you
have based off of what's going onin those communities, Like if if people
(13:05):
are talking, not necessarily the casemanagers at the bridge, but if there's
talk amongst themselves in different circles ordifferent spaces, that's when you really know
that there has been someone who hasbeen positively affected. So it's definitely been
good I can say on my endas far as recidivism, you know,
with their intensive case management, Ihaven't had anyone go back, which is
(13:28):
a good sign that things are happening, that things are moving, that hope
is there. Even if we aren'texactly where we want to be, you
know at the time, there ismovement happening to get to where they need
to be. Well, at theend of the day, it's all about
quality, right, not just quantity. We want even if it's just a
few people We want them to gothrough the program and really have such an
(13:50):
impact that they stick with these careersand like you said, never go back
to prison, right. So thankyou both for joining me today. It's
been awesome just to dig a littlebit of deeper to the Dallas Pathways program
and figure out some of the thingsthat you do Stephanie on our program's operations
side. It's been a great conversationand I hope to have you guys back
here soon. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us, so
(14:11):
we'll see you again next time.
Hello, and welcome to Community Conversations. I'm your host, Erica English,
Senior director of Marketing and Communications forVolunteers of America Texas. Joining us today
is Stephanie head As Rodriguez. She'sthe programs operation manager for VOA Texas,
and also Taylor Galvin, who isthe employment specialist for the VOA Texas Dallas
(00:30):
Pathways program. Thank you guys forjoining us today. Thank you so much
for us. Well, before weget started and into the conversation, I
do want to take a moment tothank our sponsored Niagara Conservation. Niagara provides
energy efficient toilets for our affordable housingprograms, in particular the Oaks, which
is in the Oakliffe neighborhood of Dallas, Texas. So thank you guys for
(00:52):
joining us today. Good morning,Thank you so much for having us today.
So Stephanie, tell us a littlebit again about what you do for
Volunteers of America Texas. Yes,as a program operations manager, I basically
help kickoff start grants and projects thatwe have funded recently. So one of
the biggest examples and one of thebiggest projects that I first started as a
program operations manager is getting a replicaor a duplicate of the Financial Opportunity Center
(01:18):
that we have successfully been in programmingfor a long time in Houston and getting
that started over here in Dallas andthen the DFW area. So the City
of Dallas has funded us with theCity of Dallas Pathways for re entry and
workforce related employment opportunities for people whohave been impacted by the justice system.
(01:42):
And I help kickoff start off thatgrant and get it up and running.
And like you said, we've hadthe Financial Opportunity Center down in Houston for
years and it's been wildly successful downin Harris County. Taylor, you new
to the team sort of at thispoint. Tell us how's it been coming
on and tell us what career pathsare available through the Pathways program. It's
(02:06):
been a whirlwind of excitement coming intothe program. It's been exciting watching it
grow expand building it from scratch andwatching it become what it is. There
are many different pathways available to ourclients. We have IT programs for security
the ones who do qualify for securitytype of IT jobs. We have culinary
(02:28):
certifications available. These are certification programsas opposed to bachelors or associate degree programs.
We have different things business management.A lot of people who want to
take charge of their careers based offof their backgrounds or their situations. It's
important to them to be able tobe in more leadership roles and take control
of the skills that they already haveobtained throughout their lifetime. And that's great
(02:53):
because we don't just want people towalk away with the job. We want
them to walk away with careers andskill sets that they can build on for
years to come. Can you identifyor just talk about a few of the
clients that you've come across and whatstands out to you the most about them.
I've had a lot of entrepreneurial typeof clients. I've had one lady
in particular, just recently who gota job at AT and T. She's
(03:16):
working in Richardson as one of thesales representatives. She's been doing well.
She's on her second month. It'sa well paying job, well above the
mount that was set for the minimumof how much the expectation is for them
to make and she's happy. She'sUnfortunately she couldn't come to the program today
because she's at work, but she'sdoing well. That's a good reason to
(03:38):
miss that program. And you know, I like the emphasis also on justice
impacted people because so many people haveworked really hard to alleviate the mandate to
check that box and with the stigmathat it brings to have to check the
box. Kind of expand on thatand maybe some of the challenges that justice
impact that people have had just lookingfor a job backgrounds. As always for
(04:00):
jobs, we all have to havethe background check, so that it's definitely
the stipulation. So what I've donea compromise is make sure to market for
these people. It's not about justbuilding those relationships and partnerships with the client,
but also go into businesses, youknow, becoming a reputable individual within
the community, like I have peoplewho have the skills that you need for
(04:21):
your position. I mean, thereare background requirements, but what I'm learning
is that it's a lot of aone on one, case by case situations
and that does make it a littlebit easier when they do have those type
of ways to kind of make thedecision on their own and step instead of
just strict rules. And that seemsto be very common. I guess post
(04:43):
COVID of having a little bit moreof that case by case situation. But
that has been a little bit ofthe restriction in the backgrounds. And you
bring up an interesting point because thecase by case basis, it just it
means that we have to do truecase management, right all these wrap around
service is that we may be ableto provide we won't know about them unless
we do true case management. Sojust kind of explain to people what that
(05:08):
means. True case management will requirejust digging into their background, what type
of things they need, like beingable to provide them different resources, because
just providing a job isn't enough.You have to be able to make sure
those transportation needs being met. Food, there's a lot of people who don't
have the food for they get thatjob. You know, you help with
(05:28):
bus passes, they might not havefood for lunch, or they might not
have food for their family. There'schildcare and situations where you know you have
to go back and make sure likeOkay, well do I have a contact
or o there some resources in thecommunity. Sometimes you do have to step
back doing true case management to see, okay, is this really feasible for
them to get this job. It'sa great job, makes a lot of
(05:50):
money, but in this current situationwith the current limited resources, is this
really realistic based off of where thisclient is at this point in time,
and so in order to do truecase management, I think it requires being
able to look around, provide thosewrap around services, have those partnerships in
the community to ensure that what theyneed or what they want. Even right
(06:15):
now we go over smart goals,when we talk about what the future looks
like, is realistic in that moment. Yeah, that's a great way to
set them up for success. Now, Stephanie, how has the employment landscape
kind of changed since COVID Taylor mentionedour pandemic, our recent pandemic, So
just kind of explained what it's changedover the last few years. Yeah.
(06:38):
Absolutely. I want to emphasize thatthere has been a big impact and a
lot of follow through from a lotof different agencies for their government, even
local government wanting to fund this typeof population and this type of work that
we're doing. They really want toprovide education resources and provide the credentialing,
(07:00):
and so the increase of funding hasreally been tremendous over the last few years.
Even though the landscape of the industryhas changed in the sense that it
has become more remote and more customerserving in the sense, but there have
been a lot of opportunities and thata lot of our clients have been able
to take and make fit for theirown individual cases. But at the same
(07:27):
time, the funding that's allowed forthese types of programs to bring the wrap
around services that the Dallas Pathways programand our new and our new program provide
has really been emphasized by a lotof different granting grant funding opportunities, and
we have been able to get alot of different partnerships who have been on
(07:50):
board and trying to impact that specificpopulation of justice impacted individuals and trying to
provide them those wrap around services inthese new industry. An example of a
type of different jobs that the federalgovernment or even different types of funding pools
have brought are more green jobs orjobs that emphasize a more impactful opera opportunities
(08:18):
or more impact on climate change.I hear I heard the term green jobs
a lot over the past few years. Right, I'm thinking the auto industry
mainly, but I was going tomention, certainly then there's room for everyone,
right, other organizations in this spaceto provide the same types of service
because the need is so great.So if there are other organizations who are
(08:41):
watching and wondering where can I goto get this information on these funding streams,
where might they look? So it'sit's really important that you check your
even your local small business centers wherethey provide a lot of your loans and
granting opportunities. So this specific grantthat we have through the City of Dallas
from the Small Business Administration, andthey provide a lot of resources not only
(09:05):
to different nonprofits, but to thecommunity members and citizens themselves to further improve
and become more self sufficient in whateverendeavors that they have. A lot of
other resources come from the state governmentfrom Health and Human Services. They provide
a lot of granting opportunities that areemployment or health related that impact the lives
(09:31):
of the people that we're serving.And then finally, big on the especially
with the population that we serve,the re entry population that we serve,
the Bureau of Justice administration has beena big resource as well as the Department
of Labor. We have a lotof or we have a grant through the
Department of Labor for our homeless individualswho are getting back and getting reintegrated into
(09:56):
our community. I'm glad you mentionedthose other populations because certainly we focused a
lot on justice impacted people today,but we know that VOA does so much
more and reaches so many other vulnerablepopulations. So if you can just kind
of expand on some of the otherpopulations we serve in the realm of workforce,
yeah, absolutely so. One ofthe biggest ones that we have in
(10:16):
DFW is for our veterans who areexperiencing homelessness. We have our Homeless Veterans
Reintegration Program or HVRP, and thathas really started I think in twenty seventeen
and has progressed. We had itin Houston and we also have it here
in DFW, and a lot ofour programming and fundamentals of the Dallas Pathway
(10:39):
programs come from the HVRP program becausewe've been serving that population for a little
bit longer. But we also servethe re entry population in other services and
other service areas. So we includeour halfway houses where we provide integration services
(11:01):
that they also include job readiness andfinancial literacy classes there as well as the
job placements and the just re entrycase management. That is very important for
them as well as substance use treatmentwhere we have where we serve multiple multitude
of different types of clients get backand get ready to really become active members
(11:28):
of the community. Either one ofyou can answer this question, But what's
the goal? Do you guys havea target goal of how many people you
plant to serve over a number ofyears. So the target goal really for
the City of Dallas Pathways program isover two years we impact sixty individuals,
so thirty over each year, andthat is with placing them and giving them
(11:52):
impactful, meaningful career pathways not justa job, and that I think think
we've been doing really well. Westarted kind of late in the game in
twenty twenty two, but so farwe've impacted about thirty or thirty one individuals
with job placements and jobbing opportunities.And the goal really is to reduce recidivism,
(12:18):
to help them not go back intothe old habits, and break that
cycle of poverty that we really hearabout and talk about a lot, and
then really have a purpose in lifeand not just again not just a job
or employment, but a career thatthey can move upward and have upward mobility
so on the personal front, Taylor, how has it been for you personally
(12:43):
to see people achieve these goals andto go off and start on these career
paths and opportunities they may not havehad otherwise. It's been great. I've
noticed it's been a lot of wordof mouth going on, which is always
a good sign. You know,you can really tell how much impact you
have based off of what's going onin those communities, Like if if people
(13:05):
are talking, not necessarily the casemanagers at the bridge, but if there's
talk amongst themselves in different circles ordifferent spaces, that's when you really know
that there has been someone who hasbeen positively affected. So it's definitely been
good I can say on my endas far as recidivism, you know,
with their intensive case management, Ihaven't had anyone go back, which is
(13:28):
a good sign that things are happening, that things are moving, that hope
is there. Even if we aren'texactly where we want to be, you
know at the time, there ismovement happening to get to where they need
to be. Well, at theend of the day, it's all about
quality, right, not just quantity. We want even if it's just a
few people We want them to gothrough the program and really have such an
(13:50):
impact that they stick with these careersand like you said, never go back
to prison, right. So thankyou both for joining me today. It's
been awesome just to dig a littlebit of deeper to the Dallas Pathways program
and figure out some of the thingsthat you do Stephanie on our program's operations
side. It's been a great conversationand I hope to have you guys back
here soon. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us, so
(14:11):
we'll see you again next time.
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