Pro­gram Spot­light — Employ­ment Services

January 31, 2022

KYC’s Employ­ment Ser­vices pro­gram works with qual­i­fy­ing indi­vid­u­als who are liv­ing with a men­tal health diag­no­sis or phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty and are look­ing to find work for the first time, or to re-engage in the work­place fol­low­ing a peri­od of time that kept them from work­ing. Our team is made up of Employ­ment Spe­cial­ists who pro­vide our clients with sup­port in one-on-one job coach­ing, job devel­op­ment and place­ment, skills train­ing, and career devel­op­ment ser­vices. The team works to cre­ative­ly sup­port the needs of clients while empow­er­ing each indi­vid­ual through grow­ing their nat­ur­al skill sets in the workplace.

Gary — Employ­ment Specialist

Gary is one of the team of ded­i­cat­ed Employ­ment Spe­cial­ists at Ken­neth Young Cen­ter work­ing dili­gent­ly to help clients find, obtain, and keep a ful­fill­ing job. After retir­ing 10 years ago from a career in the Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy indus­try, he was look­ing to give back to his com­mu­ni­ty and joined Ken­neth Young Cen­ter as a vol­un­teer, start­ing imme­di­ate­ly in the Employ­ment Ser­vices Depart­ment. ​“Although I had no pri­or train­ing, dur­ing my tenure as a vol­un­teer, I expe­ri­enced great suc­cess in pro­vid­ing employ­ment ser­vices. About 5 years ago, I was offered an offi­cial job with KYC. I nev­er looked back,” said Gary.

Employ­ment Spe­cial­ists focus on assist­ing and coach­ing their clients through every aspect of their search for employ­ment. From first cre­at­ing and edit­ing resumes and cov­er let­ters, to com­plet­ing appli­ca­tions and skills tests, and final­ly assist­ing with inter­views and post-employ­ment check ins, Employ­ment Spe­cial­ists sup­port their clients on every step of the jour­ney. A key piece to this process is help­ing to over­come the bar­ri­ers to employ­ment that exist for so many job seekers.

Many clients must nav­i­gate gaps in their resume, trans­porta­tion issues, or out-of-date skills that may have been caused by, or exag­ger­at­ed by, a men­tal health chal­lenge or phys­i­cal dis­abil­i­ty. This is where Ken­neth Young Cen­ter Spe­cial­ists pro­vide crit­i­cal sup­port and advice. The employ­ment ser­vices team sup­ports client choice in find­ing com­pet­i­tive employ­ment, some­times offer­ing full assis­tance in set­ting up and accom­pa­ny­ing them to inter­views, help­ing arrange for work­place accom­mo­da­tions when nec­es­sary, and onsite job coach­ing if need­ed. For oth­ers, Employ­ment Spe­cial­ists work direct­ly with the client and have min­i­mal con­tact with the employ­er. Gary shares that occa­sion­al­ly some employ­ers may not know that the appli­cant is even receiv­ing sup­port from Ken­neth Young Cen­ter, and he sees this as a sign of suc­cess for the client and the program.

Gary prefers the term ​“Job Coach” because of the close pos­i­tive con­nec­tions he makes with his clients dur­ing, and after, their time with Ken­neth Young Cen­ter. One of his favorite aspects of employ­ment work is keep­ing in touch with for­mer clients after a suc­cess­ful place­ment. Gary’s pas­sion for chang­ing lives is clear in the way he so eager­ly shares the suc­cess­es of the Employ­ment Ser­vices team, ​“I am so proud to be help­ing our clients and our com­mu­ni­ty. This job is the most impor­tant work that I have done in my life, I tru­ly believe it is my call­ing. This has been one of the high­lights of my life. I love KYC, I love the peo­ple I work with, and I love the clients I work for.” 

New Part­ner­ship with Blend N Con­cepts and Arc-Tronics

Gary is a self-described ​“orig­i­nal nerd”, con­stant­ly build­ing elec­tron­ic devices at his home to keep busy dur­ing retire­ment. His love of tech­nol­o­gy has fueled an excit­ing new part­ner­ship with local busi­ness­es Blend N Con­cepts and Arc-Tron­ics. This year, while attend­ing a job fair spon­sored by Elk Grove Vil­lage, Gary made con­tact with Blend N Con­cepts, a staffing agency. He describes the rela­tion­ship with Blend N Con­cepts and KYC as per­fect team­mates to find clients the right job, ​“I have nev­er worked with such won­der­ful people.” 

Due to the staffing short­ages many com­pa­nies are expe­ri­enc­ing, the con­nec­tion could not have come at a bet­ter time, and it has high­light­ed a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for recruiters to part­ner with Ken­neth Young Cen­ter. Com­pa­nies appre­ci­ate the abil­i­ty to work with KYC clients because they are sup­port­ed with pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment and assis­tance, cre­at­ing a smooth tran­si­tion into a role that match­es both the client’s skills and the needs of the com­pa­ny. Blend N Con­cepts has proven to be a fan­tas­tic part­ner to Ken­neth Young Center’s Employ­ment Ser­vices team, employ­ing clients at their own com­pa­ny and also con­nect­ing them with oppor­tu­ni­ties at Arc-Tron­ics, an Elk Grove-based elec­tron­ics manufacturer. 

Arc-Tron­ics spe­cial­izes in assem­bling and test­ing elec­tron­ic cir­cuit boards, and has built an inclu­sive and reward­ing part­ner­ship with Ken­neth Young Cen­ter by employ­ing clients as part-time Assem­blers and Inspec­tors. Gary cred­its the suc­cess of the place­ments to the sup­port­ive envi­ron­ment cre­at­ed by Arc-Tron­ics employ­ees and man­age­ment, and the flex­i­ble sched­ul­ing offered for clients. The Employ­ment Ser­vices team con­tin­ues to work with Blend N Con­cepts to match clients with posi­tions at Arc-Tron­ics based on the client’s skill lev­el and expe­ri­ence. After an ini­tial group of 3 were hired and enjoyed suc­cess in their new roles, the part­ner­ship swelled to 11 total clients and is still grow­ing today. 

Gary com­ment­ed that the expan­sion of this pro­gram has invig­o­rat­ed the entire Employ­ment Ser­vices team. ​“Over the last cou­ple weeks, I have wit­nessed some of the most pro­found pos­i­tive changes I have ever seen in some of our clients… this oppor­tu­ni­ty has been an amaz­ing blessing.” 

If you would like more infor­ma­tion about our Employ­ment Ser­vices pro­gram, please click here or call our team at 847−524−8800 ext. 198.

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