Diana Shinall has been very successful in the past in the Allied Drive area and other troubled neighborhoods with her Madison Apprenticeship Program (MAP), a 12-week life skills course where people can learn conflict resolution, soft job skills, language arts and money management.
Now she’s bringing those same ideas to the north side as part of the Northside Early Childhood Zone’s new North Side Employment and Training Program. The program doesn’t quite have a name yet, but that’s something she hopes the community will have input on during the Northside Early Child Zone Open House and Naming Ceremony tonight at the NECZ Offices on 2830 Dryden Dr.
“We decided to have a naming ceremony and invited the community to be a part of it,” says Shinall, an education and employment specialist for NECZ.
The open house will feature children’s activities, food, and music by DJ Martinez White. It will be a chance to learn more about NECZ and it’s new employment and training program.
“It will be a similar rendition of MAP,” Shinall tells Madison365. “The concept is to help people who have been stuck in a place and can’t seem to get out of that rut or a person that has just re-entered the community out of prison or parents who have little children and they just, for some reason, face these barriers – transportation, child care – and can’t get employed. The program’s goal is to help them work on those barriers and help to deal with maybe some trauma they’ve experienced.
“We now know that when people experience trauma as a child, it exacerbates over time and in their adult life they get all of these behaviors,” she adds. “In some instances, they are diagnosed as mental health, but it’s really this unmet trauma.”
Shinall says that they are looking to help train people for the beginning pre-employment phase. “My goal, and the way I see it in my mind, is that people will come to me and may have some skillset, but they have something that is not clicking,” she says. “So my job will be to help them find that place to click and be working on those soft skills they will need.”
Like MAP, they will provide childcare and food and have a big cap-and-gown graduation ceremony at the end. Unlike MAP, it won’t be 12 weeks. Shinall says that they will be doing the program two nights a week for six weeks starting in October.
“We’re going to see if we can get the same results,” she says. “I’m excited about the possibilities and we’re starting to see people get excited about it [saying] ‘Hmmmmm. What is this program? Let me think about it.’ We’re starting to get queries from people who feel like this is a great opportunity to help them move forward.”
When they finish the course, Shinall will have a variety of jobs that she will try to connect them to. “And I can support the case manager because she now has a resource in regards to supplies of jobs,” she says.
“Lakeview Lutheran Church has gratefully donated their space for us to conduct the classes,” Shinall adds. “So we are thankful to them. The space is just wonderful.”
The new employment and training program will be part of the Northside Early Childhood Zone, which provides voluntary home visiting services that focus on positive parenting, the healthy growth and development of your child, family emotional wellness and family stability. Families in home visiting may also receive support around employment, education, housing and accessing benefits.
The Northside Early Childhood Zone, which serves pregnant people and children ages birth to four, was built upon the experiences of other childhood zones that exist throughout the county.
“At our core, we have home visiting professionals who have plenty of experience and who are experts on parent/child development and parent/child relationships, who are there to support parents with services in their home,” Leslie McAllister, coordinator for the Northside Early Childhood Zone, tells Madison365. “The services are all voluntary. That’s a critical point. Parents are directing the support that the staff are providing.”
McAllister says that home visiting is a great opportunity because really solid relationships develop between the home visitor and the parents.
“Often, it can be very isolating for staff to have a lot of responsibilities for caring for this stuff that parents are dealing with,” she says. “What we know is that parents need more support than what anyone human service provider can provide … so how do we team effectively to gather the support that families need?
“In the early childhood world, we know that a lot of families are young and are starting out and are in serious need of some housing support so we also know that in Madison that we have a very limited supply of affordable housing,” she adds. “A lot of women and mothers and families are living in doubled-up situations. What we’re trying to do is to wrap some supports around education and housing and mental health needs.”
And also employment. That’s where the new employment and training program comes in.
“One of the things that we are seeing are families that do not have the pre-employment skills. So, as somebody who worked with Diana on Allied [Drive] and watched the magic of MAP happen, it was super-important for me to bring that kind of support and marry it with the supports that are offered through the [Northside Early Childhood]Zone,” McAllister says.
“I’m super-excited about having this opportunity. The magic of MAP is creating an environment where peers could both hold each other accountable and support each other in really healthy ways,” McAllister adds. “I think that there are a lot of opportunities for folks to be in the same location and have the same experiences, but there hasn’t always been a safe space for people to learn about themselves and to share their experiences with folks who may have had very similar experiences.”
McAllister says that what they are doing is a great example of a public-private partnership.
“So there are public entities that are part of the partnership – Dane County Human Services and the City of Madison – and then there are major private contributors, as well, including the United Way of Dane County and the Rennebom Foundation,” she says. “They have been incredible partners in creating this opportunity that we wouldn’t have had without them.
“They’ve really gotten behind this idea of early childhood investment. For me, that’s where it’s at in terms of investment and return on investment,” she adds. “Also, if we think about community development only in terms of jobs or only in terms of buildings and infrastructure, we’re missing out. Really, we want to think about families and we most definitely need to be thinking about the early childhood period. It’s such an important time in the life of a family.”
The Northside Early Child Zone Open House and Naming Ceremony today is a chance to get the word out about everything that NECZ has to offer.
“We still have spots available for home visits. Because of the generosity of Rennebom, we’ve started with a full staff, so we have openings for families who might be interested in getting some support around parenting or around child development or accessing community resources,” McAllister says.
And more specifically, it will be a fun opportunity to learn more about the new North Side Employment and Training Program.
“We’re hoping to get at least 20 people in this first class and have at least half of them be Northside Childhood Zone families,” McAllister says.
“We’re very excited for this party,” adds Shinall. “We’re really looking forward to it and it looks like the weather is going to be our friend.
