A Good Cause--and Effect

On her 18th birthday, the day of her emancipation from the foster care system, Xuan Vu left an Orange County group home she’d lived in for five months with $230 in savings, a trash bag filled with clothing and no idea of what to do next. Without job skills, she quickly ended up homeless.

“I was not prepared for the real world,” she said.

Then, while staying in a women’s shelter for several months, she heard about Orange County Works, a program designed to help former foster care youths find jobs.

The Santa Ana-based program offers job preparation and placement services to foster care graduates, youths on probation and other at-risk teens. Orange County Works teaches participants how to interview with a prospective employer, conduct a job search and move up to a better-paying position so they can make it on their own when they turn 18 and state support ends.

Orange County Works’ president Don Mac Allister, who survived six years in foster care and two years of homelessness, started the program so other former foster care youths would have the skills they needed to gain independence.

“Don introduced me to employers, helped me fill out job applications and get a California ID--just the basic needs,” Vu said. In seven days, she had her first job, at a crafts store in Fullerton.

Today Vu, 24, works as a salesclerk at a Santa Ana hardware store and lives in a nearby apartment. She’s in her second year at Orange Coast College and plans to transfer to a state polytechnic university to get a degree in landscape architecture.

“Sometimes I think, If I’d never met Don, how would my life be different?” Vu said. “Some of my friends from the group homes are into drugs and selling their bodies. They don’t go to school and they don’t have a steady job. A job is the foundation of everything. It gives you structure. It teaches you to be punctual and self-reliant. I just want to make a better life for myself.”

Mac Allister, 36, said foster children often end up on the street because the system breeds a sense of entitlement and dependency that, combined with lack of employment skills, is a “cocktail for homelessness.”

Nationwide, more than 50% become homeless or incarcerated or apply for welfare after their emancipation, according to a 1997-98 University of Wisconsin study. Sixty percent of the girls become unwed mothers within 18 months. A 1997-98 Orange County Grand Jury investigation found that at least 60% of youths who are emancipated from the foster care system end up homeless.

Mac Allister knows firsthand how tough it is to make the transition from foster care to a secure, productive life. After his mother died when he was 9, he lived in various group homes in Baltimore. The day of his emancipation, he had only $100 that he’d borrowed from his last group home and “no idea how to find and keep a job.”

“I looked at a map and said, ‘What’s the farthest place from Baltimore?’ ” He came to Los Angeles, then moved to Orange County in 1981. Mac Allister was homeless for two years before a street friend took him to a telephone sales boiler room, where he landed his first job.

Still, he had a “victim mentality,” which he said is common among foster care children.

“I thought I was entitled to special treatment,” he said. But a supervisor taught him how to act like a professional to keep his job.

“My boss saw I was playing the victim role. He told me, ‘Everybody’s had a tough go, but guess what? Either produce or take a walk.’ I realized he was right. I had a chip on my shoulder,” Mac Allister said. “It was a tough time, but it led me to a higher purpose. I wanted to make social changes and do something for foster kids.”

Mac Allister started a program offering social activities to foster children. When he heard that one of the kids he’d taken on a boat ride around Newport Harbor had ended up living on the streets, he decided to do something more.

“All these kids leaving foster care were failing,” he said. “We needed more than boat rides and nutrition classes.”

So 10 years ago, he quit his job as a commodities broker and started Orange County Works with the idea of matching foster kids with job counselors. He visited local businesses to find volunteers who would take a couple of hours a month to conduct job-training workshops. He wanted business leaders who were “self-made, hard-nosed and tough.” He figured they could identify with kids who are starting out with nothing and trying to make it on their own.

“It’s probably the best idea I ever had. What I found was that those tough, self-made people have huge hearts,” Mac Allister said. “Their attitude is ‘If you’re ready to work, we’ll help you.’ ”

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Thomas Yuen, chairman of SRS Labs Inc. in Santa Ana, was impressed with the program and donated office space for its headquarters.

‘I’ve seen Don transform these kids,” Yuen said. “This is a group of adolescents that society has ignored. We can help them with just a slight push.

“Going to a job interview is like seeing a doctor for the first time,” Yuen said. “You don’t know what to expect. This helps a lot of them have a successful first interview.”

At the workshops, held once a month on a Saturday morning at an area business, foster kids attend mock interviews with business leaders. The kids learn how to give a firm handshake, look their inquisitor in the eye and smile, fill out a job application, write a resume and other job search skills.

Cindi Kipers began volunteering with Orange County Works after learning about the program through her company, Kingston Technology of Fountain Valley, a longtime supporter. She could identify with the kids because she’s a former foster child.

“We’re not just spewing stuff at kids. The workshops are very interactive,” she said. “By the time we’re done, the kids have a nice, firm handshake and they’re looking you in the eye. They want to participate in the discussions. It boosts their self-esteem.”

Teenagers are referred to Orange County Works by foster parents, group homes, social workers and probation officers. Once they’ve been through the job training workshop, the job search begins. Job placement coordinator Marlene Grider calls them regularly to check on their progress and offer advice about where to look for work. She provides them with job leads and references.

“Some of these kids just need someone who cares,” Grider said. “I’ll call them and say, ‘You’re such a superstar. I’m proud of you.’ ”

Most find entry-level positions in all kinds of venues: fast-food restaurants, rent-a-car agencies, data entry, supermarkets and telemarketing. The long-term goal is to help the kids move into jobs that pay at least $10 an hour.

In 1998, Orange County Works trained 242 youngsters--a 90% increase from the previous year. The organization placed 93 youths in jobs, a 60% increase from 1997. This year Mac Allister hopes to train 500 youths and place at least 300 of them in jobs.

About 30 companies regularly post openings with the program, but that isn’t enough to meet the growing demand. So Mac Allister has created a web site (https://www.EmploymentFirst.com) that is accessible to the public but gives Orange County Works participants a 24-hour jump on job listings. Businesses nationwide can post job openings on the site.

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Mac Allister recently appeared before a U.S. congressional subcommittee on human resources to propose that federal Independent Living Skills legislation be amended to place greater emphasis on job-readiness training and placement for foster-care children.

Now he’s exporting the idea across the country with the Employment First System, supporting software and a Web site. There already are Works programs starting in Washington, D.C., and Harris County, Texas. Mac Allister recently traveled to Ireland, where he lived for three years as a child, to establish a Dublin Works.

Orange County Works, which is expanding under the name California Works, also has a new economic plan that calls for more fund-raisers. The organization recently held its first benefit at Windows on the Bay restaurant in Newport Beach, raising $2,500. Mac Allister hopes larger events will help establish a $2.5-million endowment fund.

“We can take this to the big leagues,” he said.

For information about Orange County Works, call (949) 442-1480, or contact the Web site: https: //www.ocworks.org.