Twice each month, nearly 50 residents of the WestCare Kentucky substance abuse treatment facility in rural Pike County file into a large classroom on the grounds. They have gathered to see one person—Jim Stewart, manager of the Pike County JobSight.

Some of the residents are only days from completing the facility’s 3-to-4 month residential rehabilitation program and returning home with a new sense of clarity and sobriety. Those are the people Stewart is there to work with. After introducing himself and explaining his services to the entire group, he gets down to business with the “short-timers” who are seated together around a small table at the front of the classroom.

Stewart holds one-on-one conversations with each of them, interviewing the men about businesses in their home areas, their work experience, and any local employers they would be interested in working for. He takes copious notes throughout. At each session’s end, Stewart promises the resident he will send information back to him about jobs available in the community he will return to upon his release.

“My goal is that when they leave WestCare, they’ll have a job interview waiting for them when they get back home,” Stewart says. “I develop individual plans for all of them so they’ve got ideas on how to get back to work or into school or training once they go home.”

Statistics show higher relapse rates among former substance abusers who do not re-enter the workforce or training soon after treatment. That makes delivering job listings, details on educational opportunities, and encouragement to WestCare residents an important extension of the JobSight workforce network’s mission to find jobs for people and people for jobs, Stewart says.

“I believe that through this we are getting some good workers who will do a good job and make money for companies,” he says. “These people made mistakes and are working to correct them, and people who do that successfully can be some of the most productive workers because they appreciate the job and realize the importance of doing a good job.”

For those reasons, Stewart’s biweekly visits to WestCare are a welcome new component to the program, according to Jenifer Noland, regional vice president of WestCare Kentucky. The Nevada-based, non-profit WestCare has treatment centers in seven states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"We are pleased to have JobSight visiting our Pike County facility to provide these important services that will assist our residents in finding employment once they complete residential treatment,” Noland says. “Having a job is an important factor in leading a clean, drug-free life."

Stewart says he uses the same approach in helping WestCare residents as he does with jobseekers who visit the Pike County JobSight workforce center located in the Pikeville Campus of Big Sandy Community and Technical College.

“I help the guys get prepared to go to work, and then actually find someplace for them to go to work,” Stewart says. “To do that, I use JobSight’s curriculum that shows them how to put together a good resume and fill out a job application.”

Stewart also guides the men through the JobSight network’s JobFit on-line job matching service. The internet-based JobFit system matches residents to the precise requirements of a specific job by comparing profiles of their job skills to profiles of the skills of the best-performing workers. A close match greatly improves the odds that they will succeed on the job.

“I’ll talk to them about how to do well in a job interview and how to apply for jobs, and I’ll take real applications they have completed back to the Kentucky Office of Employment and Training,” Stewart continues. “It’s a very comprehensive approach.”

After those initial rounds of career counseling, Stewart personally contacts many employers to lay the groundwork for job interviews for residents who are nearing the end of their stay. For residents who prefer to enroll in college or a training program rather than go directly to work, Stewart contacts officials at local colleges or vocational schools to check on admissions requirements and financial aid available.

One of Stewart’s WestCare residents is a 20-year-old from Hindman in Knott County. The young man says he is not sure what his long-term plans are, but he says he knows he wants to go back to college. He also says he is only one of many WestCare participants who are particularly appreciative of JobSight’s hands-on approach to helping them work toward once again becoming productive, law-abiding citizens.

“I think it’s wonderful that (Stewart) is coming here and offering his time to help us,” the resident says. “Some people here don’t know where to begin, so it’s great that he’s here to help us figure out what we’re going to do.”

Another resident—a 24-year-old from West Liberty in Morgan County—says residents are often “blinded to what’s going on back at home” on the job front because of the length of WestCare’s treatment program.

“But Jim comes in here and gives us good information about where we can go back to work, where we stand, and where the companies we want to work for stand,” he says. “When you’ve been away like this, you lose focus, but he’s in here opening up our eyes and really showing us things that can help us.

“It gives us hope, and we need that,” he says.

Stewart says he tries to balance that sense of hope with some realism, including instructing residents on ways to answer the tough questions about their criminal records that will invariably arise in job interviews.

“We work hard on those answers so they can turn a negative into a positive,” Stewart says. “A background check is going to turn everything up, so I tell them to be upfront about their problems and to not whitewash things.

“But they do have something positive to say, because they’ve done something about their problems,” he says.

Helping people find current job leads, pursue job training, and secure financial assistance to train for a career are key elements in the JobSight network’s mission of finding jobs for people and people for jobs. The Pike County JobSight is part of the JobSight network of workforce centers operated in 23 eastern Kentucky counties by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP). At JobSight’s “one-stop” workforce centers, job seekers and employers can access over a dozen state and federal employment and training programs and a variety of employer services, all in a single location.

Before the residents leave WestCare, Stewart tells them to come to the JobSight if they are unsuccessful in landing the job he helped them apply for. At the JobSight, Stewart can help them look into other options, including exploring ways to train for a new career with support from federal Workforce Investment Act (WIA)-funded programs.

“Once they walk out this door, we could lose touch with them,” Stewart says. “But I’ll offer the WIA to them, and ask them to come see me at the JobSight. We keep that invitation open.”

Brandi Davis, a counselor at WestCare, says she considers JobSight’s presence at the facility and Stewart’s commitment to the residents’ success invaluable.

“Jim can sometimes help them get their foot in the door in situations where they personally couldn’t,” Davis says. “One of the main components in living a sober, drug-free life is getting into something that’s positive, and Jim being here is helping us do that for our residents.”

Stewart says JobSight plans to continue its partnership with WestCare into 2007 in order to help ensure all of the facility’s residents have the opportunity to make a clean start as productive members of the workforce.

“They are behind the curve a bit, and they need help to catch up,” Stewart says. “We’re helping them get up to speed, and letting them know that they can be members of society again and can break out of the cycle that got them here in the first place.”