Learn, Earn, Advance, and Prosper

One of the great challenges of crafting human services programs is not only providing services that will help our customers improve their quality of life, but also building programs with which our customers will want to engage. The policy makers who design these strategies spend a great deal of time trying to enhance services and implement policies that will be beneficial to the overall well-being of our customers, further their stability, and encourage their development as they continue upon their life’s journeys.

It may not come as a surprise that it is quite difficult to provide such services to people in different walks of life, who have different goals, and experience different barriers to achieving those goals. DHS’s commitment to meeting this challenge is reflected in our new mission statement, which has been rephrased to reflect our commitment to helping DC residents to achieve their potential, by connecting them with well-run programs and resources that are offered either within DHS or through our partner organizations.

DHS’s Learn, Earn, Advance, and Prosper (LEAP) program takes a very direct approach to delivering work readiness services to District residents who are receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a cash assistance program that is more commonly known as welfare. The LEAP program demonstrates that sometimes, the simplest approach has the most direct results. We are excited about the great potential that this initiative has to help District residents achieve their employment goals.

Short Term Goals, Long Term Goals

At the start of each cohort of the LEAP Academy, classes of TANF participants — largely single, female, heads of households — come together to discuss their short and long term career goals, and how to achieve those goals. Throughout the course of the LEAP Academy, the participants also receive job training seminars, resume development workshops, and other workforce development activities that are akin to those offered by career services offices at colleges across the country.

In one class, a single mother of three speaks up. She is in the process of taking several online classes, and she describes one of her challenges — how to manage her time and get her classwork done, while juggling the busy summer schedules of her three young children. One of her short term goals is to be on the Dean’s list this semester. She expresses how difficult it can be to complete all assignments on time, particularly when she spends a significant portion of her free time shuttling her children to and from different day camps.

The facilitators and the fellow LEAP Academy participants chime in with enthusiasm, making suggestions about how she could spend her time so as to increase the amount of work that she is able to get done during the week. There is a spirit of energetic camaraderie in the room, one that seems to spur other participants to talk about their goals and the reasons that they feel as though they cannot achieve them. With each challenge, solutions are offered.

Learn and Earn

Nydra, a determined woman and lifelong District resident, was a member of the first cohort to graduate from the LEAP program. She was unemployed for three years, sharing that “Because of my break in employment, no one wanted to give me an opportunity, even though I had degrees”. However, for the first time in three years, she now has a full time job with the DC Department of Employment Services.

The LEAP Academy program is designed to help TANF recipients map out their plans to achieve their short and long term goals, and to equip participants with skills that are applicable to the work place. However, the program goes beyond work preparation. Each participant that completes the course is guaranteed a paid internship at either a private sector organization or a government agency. These real work experiences not only help participants re-enter the job market and give them marketable, hands on job experience — these internships also turn into jobs for a nearly half of all LEAP Academy participants.

In her new job, which she received as a result of her hard work in the LEAP Academy, not only will Nydra be able to support her six children, she will also get to help other mothers like her move out of the cycle of poverty or unemployment. Nydra approaches this new job and her new career with the philosophy that “Everything is not going to be given to you, so sometimes you have to go out and fight for what you want”. Now, she will help other mothers like her fight to support themselves and their families onto a path where they can achieve the goals that they set forth.

Pathways to the Middle Class

Helping District residents move into the middle class is a priority for Mayor Bowser. This program is meant to directly further this mayoral priority, by encouraging the heads of households who are living below the poverty line to learn skills that will lead to a permanent employment. This program is just one year old, but has seen three cohorts of TANF participants, with dozens of individuals gaining full time employment after the completion of the program.

Not only does this program take an incredibly direct approach to the problem of unemployment, it is the essence of collaboration among government agencies, and demonstrates DC government’s commitment to supporting both local DC employers, and local DC residents.

Congratulations Nydra, and all of our LEAP Academy Graduates! If you are an individual or an employer interested in learning more about the LEAP program, or the other employment training programs that are offered through District Government, call the office of work opportunity at 
202-698-1860.

Jessica Spero Li, Staff Assistant, DHS