Jobs Center for Deaf Moves to Larger Site

Goodwill Industries’ job-training and placement center in Van Nuys looks like any other agency helping people move into the work force.

It has a computer-training lab, counseling area and computers hooked up to the Internet for potential employees to search for jobs online.

What sets the center on Van Nuys Boulevard apart from the rest is its clientele and staff, almost all of whom are hearing impaired.

In the two years since it opened, Goodwill’s Deaf Employment and Community Center has proven so popular among clients that officials decided to use grant money to expand its services and move to larger digs from its cramped quarters in Panorama City.

Community leaders, advocates for the deaf and past graduates will be among the invited guests Wednesday at 3 p.m. for the opening celebration to be held in honor of National Deaf Awareness Week.

“It is truly a center by and for the deaf, since most of our staff are deaf or hard of hearing, myself included,” said Jenna F. Beacom, the center’s deaf-services coordinator, in a prepared statement.

“In addition to offering employment assistance,” she said, “a goal of this center is to provide a meeting place for the deaf community, something which is really needed in the San Fernando Valley.”

The center is open to all hearing-impaired people in northern Los Angeles County, officials said, although most job seekers referred from the state Department of Rehabilitation come from the Valley.

Some 750,000 residents of Los Angeles County are hearing impaired, and they are among more than 2 million statewide living with complete or partial hearing loss, according to the Greater Los Angeles Council on Deafness, a nonprofit advocacy group.

When new clients arrive at the Valley center, they are screened to determine their level of education and job skills, officials said.

Clients who have never held a job before and are struggling to overcome personal or financial problems are placed in the center’s General Employability Skills program. There they learn interviewing skills, time management and workplace appearance and etiquette, officials said.

Others are placed in the Office of Applications Training to learn job skills, including computer software programs.

Those who already have skills or are looking for a better position are assigned to a job placement counselor.

Most clients graduate from the center within six months to a year, officials said. Successful graduates have been hired in the private sector as administrative assistants or medical billing clerks. Others have gone on to work with hearing-impaired people through various social service agencies.

“A deaf person is just as able as any other person to do a job,” said Carri Richardson, the center’s job developer and interpreter. “The whole mission of the program is to get deaf clientele working.”