Some graduates of job skills program still struggle with personal, employment issues
JOAN BARRON Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Sunday, April 8, 2007 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - Katie Painter runs a front end-loader for Hot Iron, a construction company that does excavation work for storm sewers and pipelines. She works 50 hours a week, receives overtime pay, and lives in a trailer she owns on land she and the bank own between Moorcroft and Upton.
That's an 80 mile-per-day commute from home to her job at Gillette, but she wants to keep her children in school in Moorcroft.
Painter, 31, has four boys - 9-year-old twins, a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old. She started the job in January at $14 an hour and just received a raise.
"I'm doing a lot better. It costs a lot to drive back and forth and for day care," she said. "But we can actually live a little, finally."
Painter is one of nine single mothers who completed a training program in electrical, plumbing and other industrial systems through Laramie County Community College last June. As of December, seven of the nine were employed at an average hourly wage of $10.06. When they entered the program, only five of the nine were employed, with an average pay of $6.95 per hour.
The training at LCCC was part of the the CLIMB Wyoming program of "Our Families, Our Futures," a nonprofit organization that is part of the state's welfare reform efforts. The premise of the program is to train poor single mothers so they can make a living wage and step out of poverty. They are offered training in traditionally male jobs, such as running heavy equipment, as well as in preparation for office and heatlh care careers.
Follow-up surveys of about 300 CLIMB Wyoming graduates found their mean hourly wage rose to $12.39 after 18 months. The higher pay won't allow the single mothers to live a lavish lifestyle, but it's a good start.
Yet 20 percent of the participants in the program continue to struggle with employment and personal issues, a spokeswoman said.
Amy Wheeler of Cheyenne is one of the 20 percent still struggling.
She said she did OK for six months at a job servicing copying machines. Then she became ill and was unable to work full time. She still is undergoing medical tests but works part time at a payday loan company in Cheyenne.
This is the same job she had when she entered the CLIMB program.
"This has not been a good year health wise," said Wheeler, 44. "I'm back to ground zero."
She said she was making $10 an hour servicing copy machines, which she believes is low for that type of work. She also received a $200 per month gasoline allowance.
"I think I got one of the most challenging positions," she said of the nine women in her class. Copy machines have multiple parts, she noted, and are complicated to fix.
Despite the setback, Wheeler said the training was good for her.
"It gave me a lot of confidence," she said.
She pulled a 3.75 grade point average for the class and discovered that she has technical skills.
The mother of four children, ages 19, 17 and 5, has been offered a job as project coordinator for a construction company at F.E. Warren Air Force Base for $13 per hour.
Not all of the graduates of the "Our Families, Our Futures" program have gone on to become self-sufficient, but the former director of the state Department of Family Services says the program is well worth its annual $750,000 price tag.
"It's a great program," said Rodger McDaniel, now deputy director of the Department of Health for the substance abuse and mental health divisions.
Teaching women job skills doesn't always succeed in lifting them out of poverty, so the "Our Families, Our Futures" program offers more than job training, he said.
"It's comprehensive in terms of meeting individual needs," McDaniel said. "That may be parenting skills. It could be substance abuse, treatment or mental health counseling. It could be things like nutrition training.
"Some of these young mothers really don't even know how to prepare meals," he added.
Painter isn't lacking in those skills, but supporting herself and four children is a big job, even now that she's making more money.
Painter's employer does not provide health insurance. She still receives help from the state with her day care costs.
She said her father, brother-in-law and best friend help with the children when necessary, including her work days, when her day care closes at 5:45 p.m. and she doesn't get home until 7 p.m.
Declining poverty
According to 2005 figures, 33 percent of Wyoming's 10,400 single mothers, or 3,432, have incomes below the poverty level. This compares to 41.3 percent in Nebraska and 33.8 percent in Colorado.
Wyoming's rate reflects a slight decline in the percentage of single mothers in poverty.
"Poverty is declining in Wyoming because the economy is really doing good," said Wenlin Liu, senior economist with the state's economic analysis division. Unemployment is down, and jobs are not hard to find, he added.
Most of the women accepted into the CLIMB Wyoming program were eligible for public assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and were using food stamps.
Although more than 5,000 families were on the old Aid to Families With Dependent Children before 1996, the requirements of welfare reform thinned the rolls. Today only about 300 families are on the TANF program.
Of the 300, 70 to 75 percent are grandparents taking care of grandchildren or relatives who are caregivers, said Amanda Aguilar, a consultant with the Department of Family Services. This group is exempt from the five-year limit for receiving cash benefits.
Becoming independent
The industrial systems training at LCCC was just one part of the CLIMB Wyoming program. It also has two programs under way in Cheyenne. One is training another group of eight women in integrated systems technology. The other is working with younger mothers, ages 16-22, and helping them enter office and health care careers, said Jessica Barrett Spear, program communication director.
The organization also has programs running in Casper, Laramie, Gillette, Pinedale and Jackson and will open a CLIMB site in Rock Springs later this year to help single mothers enter careers in the extraction and construction industries.
Officials hope graduates of these programs will match or exceed the success of the LCCC trainees - including Misty Eisenbarth, who now lives in a rented house in Rock River with her two sons, ages 4 and 7. Her job is doing maintenance and repairs on the wind turbines at Arlington about 20 miles from her home.
Her employer pays her health insurance and $13.79 per hour. She no longer needs public assistance.
"It's good, really," she said.
The down side is that she must drive 40 miles to Laramie to get groceries.
Meanwhile, Brandi Wahlen of Casper is a backup phlobotomist for Wyoming Health Fairs in Casper. Her main job is office work, plus a lot of marketing and scheduling of phlobotomists for blood draws around the state and in Nebraska and Colorado.
She was one of 10 single mothers who took a mini-semester course at Casper College in phlebotomy, learning the technique of collecting blood samples. She said eight finished the course.
A Casper native, she graduated from Roosevelt High School. Wahlen, 21, has an 18-month-old son.
Financially, she is now "perfectly fine. My job pays very well. I love my job," Wahlen said.
"I think I'm one of the few people who actually loves where they were placed," she added.
She has health insurance through her employer.
"I'm off low-income housing and everything," Wahlen said.
Capital bureau reporter Joan Barron can be reached at (307) 632-1244 or at joan.barron@casperstartribune.net.