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Workforce Development
STRIVE Baltimore

In the spring of 1997, The Abell Foundation awarded Baltimore City Healthy Start a $250,000 grant to replicate in Baltimore the highly successful East Harlem job placement program called STRIVE. The East Harlem program has been in operation since 1985 and now has affiliate programs in ten other cities, including Baltimore.

The STRIVE model emphasizes attitudinal training, job placement and post-placement support. The program prepares participants for the workforce through a strict, demanding three-week workshop (115 hours) that focuses on sharpening job-seeking and job-readiness skills and improving workplace behavior, appearance and attitude. Upon completion of the training, most STRIVE participants are placed in jobs within three weeks. A key component of the STRIVE program is that its graduates are monitored for a minimum of two years.

Now in its tenth year, STRIVE Baltimore has trained 2,900 Baltimore residents since 1998, and continues to produce impressive results. In 2007, with a $400,000 grant from The Abell Foundation:

  • The program graduated 294 participants, 75 percent (221) of whom were placed in employment; and
  • STRIVE graduates who were placed in employment earned, on average, $9.98 per hour, which translates into $20,758 per year;

STRIVE continues to reach the hardest-to-serve: of its 294 graduates, 51 percent had not received their high school diploma or GED, and 72 percent had felony or misdemeanor convictions.

Of those placed in jobs in 2007, 57 percent had retained employment for six months or longer. The average cost per placement was $2,150.

The success of STRIVE Baltimore led to the creation of the Center for Urban Families (originally named the Center for Fathers, Families and Workforce Development). The Center for Urban Families serves disadvantaged adults, both men and women, addressing their employment needs, as well as providing services that are designed to strengthen families, promote healthy relationships, and improve the capacity of noncustodial fathers to assume their parental responsibilities.