Four Week Training:

Pictured above: 2011 Blue Jacket Gradates

Blue Jacket, Inc. (BJI) Program Staff worked tirelessly at improving outcomes in our graduates and not just to train how to become self-sufficient in their job search, but to provide mechanisms for job, career and life success. BJI staff members had the experience of graduating 1,250 adults to the date of these revisions going into effect, in September 2010.

BJI staff tacked on two additional weeks to its existing two weeks to increase in graduates:

1) Rapid attachment to employment
2) Job retention
3) Positive support networks
4) Pride (and consequently, credibility)

To those that know about Blue Jacket, our job readiness training was taught in a two week time span, 30 hours total. Staff felt that more time was needed to develop relationships, to develop a true career trajectory and to hook them up with positive support (networks) that can help prevent failure and be a safety net when adversity and tribulation befalls the graduate.

It is important to Blue Jacket that quitting or getting fired from a job is not an option, that a career path remains clearly in focus and that one is protected from the temptation to deviate from that path. This is set forth with additional support groups, accountability people, life skill training and having a firm financial, spiritual, mental, physical, social, familial, and recreational footing.

Blue Jacket places expectations on its participants. The idea of finding a job for someone that has violated a social trust, with no strings attached, perpetuates a selfish societal trait Blue Jacket encounters often. Ex-offenders (now potential employees) have everything to prove, and that takes time and effort. Blue Jacket emphasizes to each participant at intake must apply newfound job searching methods to secure employment on their own. Thus, Blue Jacket holds every student that attends the Career Academy accountable to shake every tree and to turn every stone to become employed. Blue Jacket provides networks through its mentoring initiative, job leads from staff, and transitional jobs through Opportunity Staffing.

	2006	2007	2008	2009	YTD 2010
Referrals (Mainly ACCC)	*	*	*	425	329
Walk-ins	*	*	*	249	215
Graduates of the Career Academy	84	196	455	350	260
Vocational Training Recipients	*	35	12	0	30
Job Starts	*	*	*	142	136
Recidivism	36%	21%	18%	n/a	n/a

* - Statistic not collected.

Blue Jacket, Inc. Department of Labor PRI statistics	YTD – 10/2010
Participant Enrollment	194
Participation Rate	61%
Entered Employment Rate (EER)	59%
Employment Retention Rate (ERR)	71%
Average Earnings per quarter	$7,258
Recidivism Rate	21%
Mentoring Rate	56%

Key Partners:

How to get involved:

Donate your Business Professional Clothes :: Email: Jennifer Harvey
Donate items for resale at the 2^nd Chance Auction :: Email: Debbie Gotsch
Contribute financially into the scholarship bank to allow more clients to change their lives:
$250 = Job Search Training for 1 person
$600 = Job Search Training and continued Career Development for 1 person
Volunteer as a Mock Interviewer :: Putting into practice skills learned :: Email Lance Stiver

Blue Jacket turns away or places on a waiting list over 300 people per year that request ts services because of a limited amount of grant funding or scholarships. It is our goal to be able to serve 1,200 individuals per year with felony convictions that wish to earn their second chance and put their life ont the right career tract.