HCCIC hears from DJFS workforce supervisor

The Harrison County Community Improvement Corporation (HCCIC) met for a regular meeting in June where they heard from the Department of Job and Family Services (DJFS). DJFS Director Deb Knight introduced the new Workforce Development Supervisor, Jacob Barr, who spoke about several programs the department is working on.

Knight introduced him and explained a little about why the workforce department is ne. “Fifteen or more years ago, the decision was made to contract our workforce services out to an entity of Jefferson County,” Knight said. “They provided the services for many years and we were very happy with the services. But I strongly believe that, number one, workforce is something that is part of our agency. And number two, I personally believe that work is very important to all of our clients as well as the community. We have a lot of things we can do for businesses in the county, probably the largest of which is to get our clients who are capable of working to work for them.

“So I finally made the decision in January to notify [Jefferson County] that we’re going to end the contract. As of July first, we will be providing the services in house. So we have created a workforce unit that Jacob is the supervisor of. In that unit we are going to put all of our work related programs.”

Knight explained that with this change, the department will be able to provide additional services that weren’t offered before. She turned the podium over to Barr who started with a quick introduction to some of the business services DJFS provides.

He explained that SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. If a person qualifies for SNAP assistance then DJFS can also begin helping them find a job. “They’ll be scheduled for assessment,” Barr said. “Once they do the assessment we can do things like supervised job search where they turn in a job search once a week.”

He went on to share about some of the services that can be provided, which included teaching soft skills to clients, which he’d learned more about at a recent conference. “They want us to teach people soft skills: showing up to work on time, showing up to work, showing up to work in the right clothes. You have some people who haven’t really done that before. We have people on the caseload now who are in their 40s who haven’t had a job before so it’s kind of teaching them how to go to work, how it’s important to go to work.”

Before Harrison took back the workforce program, an ongoing issue was that people in the program weren’t respecting job sites. “They were stealing, vandalizing, not showing up,” Barr said. “So we lost some of those job sites. So my goal now is to go around and get some of those job sites back.”

Once October rolls around, DJFS will be able to utilize private organizations for work placement, which will open up many new opportunities for residents seeking help. This was a big reason for DJFS to come speak at the HCCIC meeting as many business owners are part of the CIC and making those connections will be beneficial for both owners and DJFS.