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Training Program Takes Healthy Cut at Unemployment : Jobs: Glendale program concentrates on a single industry--medical care. Verdugo Private Industry Council expects 75% of graduates to be placed.

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SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Often, fewer than half the people in federally funded job-training programs end up finding a job. But the Verdugo Private Industry Council of Glendale thinks it put together a better job-training program by concentrating on a single industry: health care.

Sixty-five people have been trained in the Glendale program, out of 400 who participated in this statewide pilot program aimed at health-care jobs, and organizers expect 75% of them to find jobs at an average pay of between $8 and $9 per hour. That contrasts with earnings of about $5.43 per hour for average welfare recipients trained through the Verdugo council’s other programs.

The program was “a life saver,” according to laid-off Lockheed worker Mary Ann McGann. After seven months on unemployment, McGann earns $8.40 an hour as a medical assistant, greeting patients, answering phones and handling paperwork for a Toluca Lake cardiologist. That’s a big drop from the $16 an hour McGann earned at Lockheed examining blueprints and ordering materials. Still, she said: “Without this (jobs) program, I wouldn’t have gotten a real job again. Now I have a chance to build on something, to move up.”

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The Glendale program, now in its final stages, was part of what’s called the Health Careers Opportunity Program, a two-year job-training program by the state Employment Development Department and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, funded with $3 million from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Of the 50 students who have come through the Glendale program, 33 have found jobs so far. The other 15 are still finishing their classes, but nine of those have found jobs.

The council designed the program according to recommendations from local hospital officials, who suggested classes to produce workers “tailor-made to order,” said Lee Downing , head of program development for the council.

The program hired community college teachers to run the classes, which concentrated on computer and clerical skills, as well as medical terms, how to handle specimens, assess patients, plus basic math skills. In addition, the program offered an enticement to employers by offering to subsidize half the trainees’ salaries for the first 10 weeks they worked.

The project also aimed at getting more minorities and multilingual workers into health care. But it is also being hailed as an example of how investing more in job training, for a longer period, can pay off better than most traditional federally funded job training programs, which traditionally favor quick and basic courses in low-level job skills.

Although a few of the participants, such as McGann, were on unemployment rolls, most were single minority mothers on welfare. Some had never really held a job. Others had been through several government-funded job-training programs, but were still unable to find work.

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Katrin Gabri, 32, had been on welfare for four years after emigrating to this country from Iran. A single mother, she is now an occupational therapy aide at Glendale Adventist Medical Center, earning $7.88 per hour. Being on welfare for years left her depressed and demoralized. With two children to care for, she couldn’t afford to attend school, but was able to attend the one-month training course offered by Verdugo.

“Now I just want to jump ahead, I want to get an occupational therapist license,” she said. “When you work . . . you are someone in this country.”

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For Jonathan Clardy, 27, who was living off unemployment benefits, the program gave him his first permanent, full-time job as a switchboard operator for a Van Nuys Medical Group earning $1,200 per month. He recently moved into a new apartment. “For the first time, I don’t have a roommate anymore,” he said.

“These are jobs that have some stability, possibility for career advancement, reasonable wages and fringe benefits. They are desirable jobs,” said Tom Nagle, director of the state Employment Development Department.

Behind the program’s apparent success are two years of hard work that put organizers’ resourcefulness and patience to the test. Chris Rodemich, program director and nursing instructor at Glendale Community College, said it was “one of the most difficult things I have ever done.”

Her duties included scrutinizing applicants for signs of drug addiction, and she often received phone calls at home at night from students in crisis. She even found herself scanning the want ads for jobs on her free time, seeking openings for her charges. “It was hard to get them out of my mind,” she said.

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Rodemich believes the key to the program’s success was less its emphasis on health-care careers than its attention to the student’s mental health. Besides extensive discussion of self-esteem issues in class, participants were given counseling and attended group therapy sessions.

Students were provided everything from help with transportation to uniforms once they were hired. Some were even offered confidence-boosting haircuts, make-overs and manicures before job interviews. Several participants said these side benefits helped them more than the job training.

“It helped me more morally than anything,” said Anna Bohnhof, a 51-year-old Burbank woman who once worked as a clerk for a railroad company. Bohnhof had been looking for work for more than a year. “I was losing faith in myself. I didn’t know which direction to turn.”

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She now works as a patient-care service aide at Childrens Hospital, earning $8 per hour, enough to support herself and her 14-year-old daughter.

Downing said the Verdugo council has applied for grants from the federal Labor Department to continue the program, which is now expected to end in November when the pilot money runs out.

In recent years, after explosive growth in the 1980s, the health-care industry has gone through rapid consolidation in Southern California and lost 3,900 jobs in the last 12 months, according to Jack Kyser of the Economic Development Corp. of Los Angeles County. But analysts said that the kinds of jobs the Verdugo council offered training for will continue to grow as health-care providers rely increasingly on lower-paid aides and technicians to cut costs.

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“We are seeing a growth in complexity in jobs at the entry level,” said Robert H. Pola, manager of human resource development for Kaiser Permanente’s Southern California region. The advent of patient-centered care has meant hospitals and clinics increasingly need hourly workers who possess diverse skills that they can learn in a few weeks of training. Kaiser’s Bellflower hospital has just begun a similar training program of its own, Pola said.

The kind of workers the Glendale program trained “is something that would be very valued,” he said.

Such jobs may not offer luxurious living. But for at least one graduate of the Glendale program, it has more to offer than most hourly jobs--even those coveted aerospace jobs.

“I like this 10 times better,” said McGann, the former Lockheed worker. “I feel like I’m helping people. It’s more satisfying--better than putting an L-1011 in the air.”

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