By Asia Key-Armour
The Seattle Medium
Israel Espinosa was incarcerated for nineteen years, from the time he was 16 years old until he was 35.
Today, Espinosa is a graduate of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle’s (ULMS) CareerBridge program, and works as a participant navigator for ULMS’s PriorityHire, an employment program that aims to recruit individuals into the construction workforce.
Espinosa’s story stands out to Augustine Cita, ULMS’ vice president of operations, because he embodies the purpose of CareerBridge and why it is essential to the community.
The six-week program, designed to help individuals with barriers to access in education, employment, and economic career advancement opportunities, helps people obtain job skills that make them marketable to employers.
Participants in the program can obtain three industrial certifications: OSHA 10, industrial first aid/CPR, and flagger certifications. In addition, they will receive a job search portfolio that includes a resume, cover letter and personal career plan, financial tools to build and re-establish credit, a $75 stipend for each week in training paid bi-weekly, transportation assistance, support from the program’s navigators, and access to a well-connected job development team.
According to Cita, who spent a seven-and-a-half-year stint in prison himself, ULMS recruiters met Espinosa at one of the many correctional facilities where they hold CareerBridge classes.
Espinosa showed up to class on time and never missed a session. Cita was so impressed with his work ethic and his graduation speech that he offered him a position with the Urban League.
CareerBridge graduates many people who’ve been recently released from incarceration, but anyone who wants to gain job readiness skills is a qualified candidate. In recent years, more women and youth have joined the program for this purpose, Cita said.
He said Espinosa has been doing great on the job, but his employment hasn’t come without challenges.
“This is someone who never had a job,” Cita explained. “This is someone who’s never been free as an adult. I’ve been personally coaching him since he’s been home, and he’s been out just nine months. He was so institutionalized.”
He suggests its Espinosa’s commitment to re-integrating himself and the support available within ULMS that is helping him adjust so rapidly.
“We’ve invested in getting him some counseling while he’s been working in here,” Cita said. “He’s been seeing our financial coach and now he has over a 700 credit score. He makes good money, he’s going to go to our first-time homebuyers class. Being able to watch somebody like that grow over time is impressive.”
Cita believes there are many good workers like Espinosa, who want better for themselves, but will “come apart at the seams if they don’t have the right support.”
“A lot of the programs that portend to help people sometimes set up crutches that I think enable our people too much and are more counterproductive than helpful,” he said. “My main focus since I’ve been involved with ULMS is to set our people up for success that is sustainable. Not to give our people handouts, not to teach our people to be dependent on systems, but to give our people just the right push to get out on their own.”
It is that sentiment that is the essence of the program. CareerBridge offers four-hour classes Monday through Friday. The cohort’s first week focuses on life skills, or how to become acclimated to life outside of prison. This portion of the program allows each participants a time for self-reflection and to share their personal stories.
ULMS Homeless Outreach Specialist Robert Chatman went through CareerBridge in 2012. He said the base of the program is acknowledging a person’s struggles, but also their value.
Chatman talked about the unspoken battles African American men can fight when trying to develop a better livelihood for themselves and their families. He said there are things they have to contend with before they seek employment.
“We can be our own worst enemy,” he said. “We’re so prideful underneath it all. A lot of times I might not want to talk about mental health or even the life we lived, having to admit that was abnormal. It does take a toll on you.”
According to Chatman, self-empowerment was one of the greatest gifts he gained from the program.
“I learned my worth,” Chatman said. “We got to touch on a lot of the issue and barriers that a lot of [Black men] are going through. That was the root of the program, how to talk about all these things without being ashamed.”
In the second and third weeks of class, the group builds job readiness. They do labor market research, come to understand the unemployment rate, learn how to be an invaluable member of the workforce, how to market themselves, and how to develop their work ethic.
The fourth week is spent preparing a portfolio, job applications, cover letters, resumes, Linkedin accounts, and proper email accounts, as well as developing some basic computer skills. Week five is employer week. Fifteen to twenty employers, from companies like Nordstroms and Enterprise, come in for thirty-minute to hour long slots to talk about their particular company. The intention at this point is for CareerBridge participants to be ready for hire says Cita.
During the final week of the program, the CareerBridge cohorts receive industrial certifications and licenses — like food handlers permits, forklift flagging and first aid — to further prepare them to join the workforce. The program concludes with a graduation, where the cohorts fellowship with family and friends.
Every member of ULMS believes that their mission of empowering communities and changing lives starts with the individual. Communication Resource Coordinator Layelah Wilson, who is in training to become a project manager for the housing department, said the CareerBridge program is only beneficial to participants who want to change their circumstances.
“CareerBridge is for those who seek the information, take accountability for their own actions, and want to advance their career in their own personal future,” Wilson said. “The support is there. It’s just a matter of what type of push you give yourself.”
Wilson went through the CareerBridge program two years ago and felt that the Urban League acknowledged the strengths she had specifically to bring to the community. Chatman also felt that the program acknowledged his skills and allowed him to develop them further. According to Chatman, CareerBridge showed him how to turn perceived negatives into positives.
“That means not running from who you are and what you’ve been through,” Chatman said. “It’s how to translate that into actual skills that [the employer] could see as a plus quality for the job, instead of a hindrance.”
Trina Kennedy, a case manager for CareerBridge and yet another alumnus of the program, said the support the ULMS staff provides its clientele is its most effective quality in ensuring self-sufficiency and long-term success.
Kennedy said there is a certain authenticity to the ULMS staff, in that many of their experiences align with their clients, that allows them to connect with the people they serve.
“I’ve had to come up with ways to overcome my own challenges,” says Kennedy. “So, I just sit down and listen to [my clients] tell their stories and what they think is the best way for them to move forward. I let them know there’s nothing wrong with being afraid or having anxiety, but you still have to keep on pushing.”
