THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 1, 1996 TAG: 9603010002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
The road from welfare to gainful employment is steep and strewn with obstacles.
Paulette Turner, a 26-year-old mother of four, has made it at least around the first bend.
A welfare recipient for 10 years, she just completed a 22-hour program that trained her to provide child care in her home in Oakleaf Forest, a Norfolk public-housing community.
Nine more welfare recipients are to receive the same training, so home child care will be available in Oakleaf Forest and three other Norfolk public-housing communities: Diggs Town, Calvert Square and Tidewater Gardens.
The training program is called A Step Ahead. It is overseen by the nonprofit Planning Council, a human-services agency, and funded as part of a federal Health and Human Services grant for $344,000.
The bulk of that money will be used to pay the fees for the low-income parents who initially use A Step Ahead child care while they train for or go to jobs of their own. Part of the grant money will be used for the child-care providers' training, background checks, insurance and even such equipment as toys, high chairs, cots and fire extinguishers.
Tessa Ellis, coordinator for A Step Ahead, said Turner will be able to care for five children in her home and to earn about $15,000 a year.
Clearly, A Step Ahead kills two birds with one expensive stone: It provides job training and jobs for 10 current welfare recipients and child care for perhaps 50 welfare recipients while they travel the hard road to employability.
Society cannot, in good conscience, simply tell its poorest citizens, ``Sink or swim.'' First train them to swim.
It's a tough world, getting tougher, and training is crucial to survival. by CNB