STRIVE Baltimore

In 2001, Baltimore City had the third highest unemployment rate among the nation's 50 largest cities. With over 22,000 City residents counted as unemployed, this number does not include an estimated 20,000 discouraged residents who have stopped looking for work and are no longer in the labor market.

Employers often cite poor attitude and work ethic as significant barriers to employment. Employers are willing to train unskilled workers but are less likely to hire unskilled workers who lack the "soft skills": the ability to communicate with customers and co-workers, to work effectively as a member of a team, to learn new skills, and to adapt to the cultural norms of a new workplace. National data indicate that this lack of "soft skills" is a very serious and pervasive problem, particularly in urban areas.

In the spring of 1997, The Abell Foundation awarded Baltimore City Healthy Start a $250,000 grant to replicate in Baltimore the highly successful East Harlem job placement program called STRIVE. The East Harlem program has been in operation since 1985 and now has affiliate programs in ten other cities, including Baltimore.

The STRIVE model emphasizes attitudinal training, job placement and post-placement support. The program prepares participants for the workforce through a strict, demanding three-week workshop (115 hours) that focuses on sharpening job-seeking and job-readiness skills and improving workplace behavior, appearance and attitude. Upon completion of the training, most STRIVE participants are placed in jobs within three weeks. A key component of the STRIVE program is that its graduates are monitored for a minimum of two years.

Now in its eighth year, STRIVE Baltimore has trained 2,217 Baltimore residents since 1998, and continues to produce impressive results. In 2005, with a $450,000 grant from The Abell Foundation:

• The program graduated 348 participants, 78 percent (273) of whom were placed in employment; and
• STRIVE graduates who were placed in employment earned, on average, $9.25 per hour, which translates into $19,240 per year;

STRIVE continues to reach the hardest-to-serve: of its 348 graduates, 46 percent had not received their high school diploma or GED, and 60 percent had felony or misdemeanor convictions.

Of those placed in jobs in 2004, 81 percent had retained employment for six months or longer. The average cost per placement was $1,559.

The success of STRIVE Baltimore, and the growing recognition that the program needed to expand its capacity to incorporate specialized services addressing the multiple barriers facing noncustodial, low-skilled parents, led the STRIVE Baltimore principals to create a new organization with a mission separate from Baltimore City Healthy Start. This new entity was incorporated in January 1999 as the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development (CFWD). CFWD targets disadvantaged adults (both men and women) to try and meet their employment needs and to provide support services designed to improve the capacity of noncustodial fathers to assume their parental responsibilities. Core services include:

• Job readiness, placement and follow-up through STRIVE;
• Structured curriculum groups on parenting; and
• Provision of one-to-one and group counseling, advocacy and case management.