What Cascades Can Offer Businesses

The goal of Cascades Job Corps Center is to prepare young adults for successful work lives while providing businesses with workers who have the skills needed in today's work force.

Students are eligible to graduate from Cascades Job Corps when they have completed their academic and vocational training.

Job Corps is effective. Nationally, in the training year ending June 30, 1999, 82 percent of all participants got jobs, enlisted in the military, or enrolled in higher education.

Cascades Job Corps graduates are equipped for a lifetime of success. In addition to academic and vocational training, our graduates undergo intensive employability and social skills training that gives them the ability to get and keep a job.

What is Work-Based Learning? And how can I employ a Cascades student?

Visit Cascades Job Corps Center

Visiting our campus is the best way to see, first hand, how Cascades Job Corps prepares young people to be the future workers and leaders of America. You can visit the training shops, academic classrooms, dormitories, and experience other aspects of campus life.

Invite a Cascades Job Corps representative to your business or community meeting to describe the program and answer your questions about its results. Call Brian Hurst at 1-360-854-2161.

Cascades can develop partnerships with businesses to . . .

• Customize training to meet the workplace needs of local and national companies.
• Match graduates with current job openings.
• Manage and oversee Job Corps student-trainees while they participate in internships and other work-based learning opportunities.

Cascades services are provided to your business free of charge because Job Corps is a federally funded program administered by the U.S. Department of Labor.

If your company has specific needs, we can explore customizing our training program to meet your specifications. We strive to provide the most current training to our students and would like to talk with you about the skills that are needed for your business.

Cascades Job Corps offers the same services to small companies as to larger corporations. Small companies that can't afford the kind of training programs often available in larger corporations can benefit from the comprehensive training offered through Job Corps.

We welcome the opportunity to have our students work within your company. Cascades Job Corps can teach students many things about the skills that are needed in the workplace, but nothing prepares students as much as on-the-job training. This experience increases the skill and employability levels of our students, and gives you the opportunity to "test-drive" an employee before hiring.

Community Support

Cascades Job Corps Center has succeeded in training youth to be productive, contributing citizens because it has strong support from community organizations and individuals like you. Here are a few things you can do to help Cascades Job Corps students.

• Provide work experience opportunities, or host a tour of your worksite.
• You can offer work-based learning -- similar to an internship -- to Cascades Job Corps students for anywhere from three to six weeks. Your business will get a motivated entry-level worker. Sharing your feedback with students and their instructors can improve a student's job performance and chances for success.
• A tour of your place of work can offer students a glimpse of your industry in action.
• Invite Cascades Job Corps students to work on your community service activities. Involve Cascades Job Corps students in your next community project, whether it's construction of a community facility, a food drive, neighborhood cleanup, or visit with the elderly. Cascades students are eager to "give back" to their communities whenever the opportunities arise.
• Serve on a Center Industry Advisory Council or Community Relations Council. Job Corps Center Industry Advisory Council members guide Job Corps' vocational offerings to make sure they meet the demands of the labor market. The Community Relations Council promotes and coordinates initiatives to bring the center and the community together. Your council membership benefits everyone involved -- Cascades Job Corps students, businesses, the community, and you!
• Tell a young person about Job Corps. If you know a young person who could benefit from Job Corps, tell him or her to call 1-800-733-5627 for the appropriate phone number for the closest admissions counselor.
• Hire a Cascades graduate, or tell another business about Job Corps. Job Corps graduates are ready to go to work and have a strong commitment to their future. Businesses can call the Career Development Services Manager at 360-854-2178 for more information.

"I have about 10 to 15 Job Corps students work for me each year. I think Job Corps is a great program and that it is important for students to get hands-on experience prior to landing their first job. Job Corps needs us, as businesses, to help them prepare students for the work world as much as we need them as a beltway for getting employees." -- Jon Hicks, General Manager, Sodexho Marriott Services, Salt Lake City, Utah and Boise, Idaho.

"The Job Corps has helped many undecided lost young people get a running start in life. I was one of those troubled youth whose life was saved and given a second chance in life because of Job Corps." -- George Foreman, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion