Where young adults prepare for a successful future after foster care by managing and operating a manufacturing and distribution center for high-quality outdoor wood furniture.
Like most community based organizations, F.I.R.S.T. Contractors was established to address a critical matter.
The founder, a former Staff Psychologist with The Virginia Department of Juvenile Justice, realized how ineffective group and individual counseling were for most of the young men coming through the system. This realization was the result of the high rate that young men were returning to system, after a relatively short time back in the community. What was evident to the founder, was that group and individual counseling was probably too abstract for this population. This impeded the information being processed to the point that it could be internalized and transferred to improve decision making. As early as 1991 the founder, a discouraged Staff Psychologist, conceptualized and wrote the plans for a Pilot Job Readiness Program.
Because much of the problem for the young men was rooted in poor economic conditions and/or a lack of family support, it was clear to the founder that the service had to include a tangle experience for the lesson to be learned and transferable, and that the experience had to increase each young man’s ability to provide for himself – legally.
After many years of working as a Community Mental Health Consultant, for the Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services, in March 1998 the founder resigned from the Department of Mental and started F.I.R.S.T. Contractors Inc. In understanding that employability was essential to successful living, Job Readiness Training and/or Therapeutic Employment would be the key ingredient for the system of support. The “therapy” in Therapeutic Employment denotes the capability to allow young adults to better process and transfer their learning experiences into everyday life situations – thus, identifying Job Readiness Training as “a best practice.”
Because of their environmental circumstances and transient lifestyles, most of our young adults suffer from educational and emotional delays. This presented a challenge with creating job training placement opportunities with local community business owners. Our young adults were not ready for the expectations of employment, and local community businesses were not ready for the educational and emotional delays of our young adults.
The organization decided to create a self contained job readiness training experience for young adults. Construction industry trades (carpentry) and inventory management became the organizations’ training vehicle. It was believed that this focus would result in increased opportunities for immediate success, high wages, career advancement, entrepreneurship, and skills and lessons that are easily transferred. In 2001, F.I.R.S.T. Contractors Inc was established as a not-for-profit 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt organization to support the necessary costs associated with the amount of material used and tools misused in trial-and-error learning.
This innovative use of job readiness training, supportive employment, and entrepreneurship, as vehicles to promote transferable life skills has resulted in more then: