Lena Bowling gently cups Caitlyn Mathis’ tiny hands in hers under a spigot of running water as she helps her wash up before snacking on graham crackers, fruit juice, and cherry popsicles. Later, Lena reties a loose lace on Jordan Stevens’ sneaker after he plops down on the floor beside her and gestures toward his right foot.

These small expressions of help are monumental to Caitlyn, Jordan and the other one and two-year-olds who Lena reads to, plays with, feeds, and cares for at the Daniel Boone Childcare Center in Manchester.

Lena, 17, knows how it feels to need help. The Workforce Investment Act (WIA) Youth Program helped her rebound from a bout with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) that forced her out of school, helping her earn a GED and secure a good job.

Lena says she loves working with children in her part-time job at the center, which she first discovered through a summer work experience placement by the WIA Youth Program. Her positive attitude shows as she quickly goes from sitting cross-legged on the floor reading to Caleb Reid and Sydney Sester, to dancing and singing with other children as an “ABCs” song plays in the background.

The activity does not stop and neither does Lena. Watching her work, it is hard to imagine she was diagnosed five years ago as suffering from MS, a neurological disease that attacks the brain and central nervous system and can cause numbness, dizziness, vision problems, and intense spinal pain.

Lena says the disease remained largely in check until about two years ago, when she was assaulted by its symptoms so severe that she could not continue to attending school.

“I was having a lot of numbness in my legs and face,” she said. “I only went a week of my 10th grade year when I had to leave.”

Lena says steroid treatments she received during hospital stays helped send her MS into a state of remission that has continued to the present. But by the time her symptoms began to decrease, her time out of school had stretched out to more than eight months.

Lena began developing the desire to earn her GED and find a part-time job. A friend suggested that she look into the WIA Youth Program administered by the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, Inc. (EKCEP), and provided locally through the Daniel Boone Development Council. In addition to placing teens and young adults in both public and private-sector work experience jobs that match their interests and teach career skills, EKCEP's Youth Program provides a broad array of year-round services including: tutoring, study skills, alternative schooling, leadership development, mentoring, guidance and counseling.

Once Lena enrolled in the program, she began working with WIA Career Adviser Shirley Davidson.

“When I first met her, you could try to talk to her and ask her questions, and all she would do is shrug her shoulders and kind of giggle,” Shirley says. “She really has overcome a lot of shyness to get where she’s at now and do what she’s doing.”

One of Shirley’s first actions was to get Lena involved in GED preparatory classes offered at the Clay County JobSight, a one-stop workforce center located in the Daniel Boone Development Council. EKCEP administers the JobSight network, a collaborative partnership of workforce and training agencies, in 23 eastern Kentucky counties.

After four months of intensive classwork, Lena tested for and earned her GED.

“I was still really interested in getting a job,” she says.

The WIA Youth Program’s paid summer work experience element allowed Lena to work at the Daniel Boone Childcare Center, satisfying her desire to work with children. During a work experience placement, the program covers employers’ costs for participants to work roughly 30 hours per week for up to five weeks. The participants get the opportunity to earn while they learn.

As Lena worked at the Center, she was also participating in the program’s leadership development activities that helped her learn now to perform in a job interview and interact with employers and others. Because Lena excelled in all activities, she was asked by the Kentucky Adult Education representative who taught her GED course to tutor others who were preparing to take the GED exam just as she did.

“I enjoyed the tutoring, but it was nerve-wracking,” she laughs.

Lena says she truly is “in her element” when she is working with the toddlers at the center. Management at the center agreed, offering her a part-time job because of her successful performance during the work experience placement. She says she hopes to become a full-time employee there once she turns 18.

Beyond that, Lena says she might like to go to college to earn a childcare-related degree so she can someday own or operate a childcare facility.

None of these dreams would have been possible without the WIA Youth Program, she says.

“The WIA made a big difference to me,” she says. “I don’t know what I would have done without it.”