When you think of “time management”, do you picture a bunch of to-do lists, loud phone notifications, and post-it notes covering every surface? In a society of non-stop busyness, we’ve been wired to squeeze as many activities into our days as humanly possible. So, when Cara job seekers walk into our Time Management class, it’s no wonder they expect a discussion around the best calendars to use or ways to maximize their time.

“What makes you unhappy,” our Manager of Curriculum, Ms. Vicki Hudson-Stapleton, poses to the class. The room falls silent – slightly taken aback – wondering what happiness (or the lack thereof) has to do with time management. Ms. Vicki proceeds by handing out paper and pens and asking each member of the class to write a list of things that weigh them down.

For two minutes (that feel like two years), each person reflects on what makes them unhappy. “Heavy,” “discouraged,” “hopeless,” and “low” are a few of the responses shared after Ms. Vicki asks the class how they feel. The energy in the room dwindles until the instruction: “Now, I want you to write what makes you happy.”

This time, the same two minutes feel like a blink of an eye as everyone hurriedly scribbles their ideas, flipping over their piece of paper to make room for more thoughts before time is up. The shift in morale is palpable; no one hesitates to share that they are feeling emotions like “motivated,” “grateful,” and “loved.“

What does this exercise have to do with time management? Well, everything. Ms. Vicki teaches us that our ultimate happiness is why time management is so important. “What you spend time on in your life matters. We often have blinders on and keep walking down the same path, spending our years on things that don’t serve us.”

When you know what makes you happy, and conversely unhappy, your outlook on individual tasks completely changes. It pushes you to analyze the “why” behind your choices. For instance, meeting a deadline at work or grocery shopping for your family aren’t particularly enjoyable in the moment, but they are critical for a great career, a healthy future, and your overall happiness.

Ms. Vicki then asks the class to put their day-to-day activities and responsibilities into four categories:  

The lesson? It is tempting to spend time on things that aren’t urgent or important, because they aren’t necessarily “bad things” to do; they just won’t get to the heart of what will make you happy. For our job seekers, this exercise invites them to evaluate their priorities and discern if the things they spend their time and energy on are getting them closer to their goals in life.

“Your family is vitally important. Your friends are vitally important. But what do YOU really want for your life?” Ms. Vicki asks the class. And one final time, everyone takes out their pen and paper, makes a list, and circles the top two things they want most for their life.

“How bad is your ‘want to’? By putting what you want on paper, you are 50% of the way there. Speak your life into existence,” she says to underscore that time management comes down to knowing who you are and what you truly want.

We hope this glimpse into our Time Management class inspires you to think about what makes you happiest, prioritize your day-to-day activities based on urgency and importance, and find the courage to build the grandest vision for your life.

Want to do the exercise yourself or share it with others? Download the Time Management Matrix.

Stay in touch! Send us an email at info@caraplus.org and we’ll add you to our email list for more resources and upcoming workforce development offerings.

The post Time Management: It’s About Making Lists – Just Not the Kind You Think appeared first on Cara Collective.

What have you accomplished in the past year…

In 2006, we wanted to find a meaningful way to celebrate our participants who stayed on their job for one full year after completing our training program and securing employment.

We decided to build a Wall of Fame and hang certificates of achievement on prominent walls of our old location at 703 W. Monroe. It served as a powerful source of motivation for our community, and it became the cherished piece of Cara Collective culture known as our Great Wall.

Staff members tell stories of our earliest iterations of the Great Wall: how our coaches would spend Friday afternoons making a lot of ruckus, punching holes and hammering grommets into certificates. They would then string them together with fishing line and climb all over the place, determined to display them in a beautiful way.

As time went on and our organization grew, so did the size and design of the Great Wall into the one you see at our downtown campus today. We don’t use fishing line anymore, but the meaning behind the tradition has always stayed the same:

The Great Wall represents the time, growth, and learning it takes to graduate from Cara and transform your life.

“When participants make the Great Wall and graduate from Cara, it’s almost as if they are getting a stamp on their passport; they know their achievements over the past year will never be erased.”

Nora Vail, Manager of Coaching & Retention

If we can’t see it, we can’t actualize it

When you look at the certificates hanging on the Great Wall, you see that each is personal, reflecting the accomplishments and successes of our participants. You see a new graduate’s name, the company where they work, the date they made their year on the job, and a quote that inspired them to persevere through the year.

The month before participants graduate from our program and their names go up on our wall, we ask them to think about the question “What have you accomplished in the past year and how specifically did you achieve this?”

Then, our new graduates share their answers during a special Motivations we call the Great Wall Ceremony, surrounded by family and friends, new graduates, current participants, alumni, Cara Collective staff, employers, and supporters.

“So often, if we can’t see it, we can’t actualize it. That’s why it is so important for the people still sitting in those chairs as current participants to see a graduate come back and say ‘I sat in those chairs,’ or talk about the raise they got or what they’ve accomplished in the past year. It’s truly motivating.”

Eric Weinheimer, Former Cara President & CEO

Why one year

We are often asked why one year on the job is so important at Cara when most workforce development programs measure their success by participants reaching anywhere from 90 days to six months on the job. The reason we take a unique, extended approach is because life happens in cycles for all of us; a lot of change occurs over the course of 12 months.

For example, if someone gets a job in January, and we don’t coach and measure their retention for a whole year, we might not be there for when their kids go back to school in the fall, when their utility bills go up and down according to the seasons, or the moment they are ready to move into their first apartment.

We want to ensure that everyone in our community has the time and support to sort through all of these changes, because real, lasting transformation isn’t only about finding a job. Our focus is intentionally on self-actualization and leadership development. Making it onto the Great Wall gives participants an opportunity to take a moment, pause, reflect, and acknowledge this journey and what it took to get to this point.

“Participants come back a year later believing ‘I’m actually a leader in my space, and I have pride and purpose in my work.’”

Bob White, Chief Program Officer

Great Walls all over Chicago and beyond

We know that the Great Wall doesn’t just live at Cara; there are Great Walls all over Chicago and around the country.

We see them in Atlanta, Georgia and Fort Wayne, Indiana, home to our Cara Plus affiliates, Atlanta Mission and Lutheran Social Services of Indiana. These organizations developed workforce development programs based on Cara’s method; and each chose to build a Great Wall of their own.

And in Chicago, on more than a few occasions, members of our staff have visited graduates’ homes where they see their Great Wall certificate framed on the wall.

Those framed certificates in people’s homes let us know this is not about Cara anymore; this is so much bigger. Our graduates are putting their name on their wall in their own home.

Our mission is so much more than helping people get employment; we’re creating a community where people thrive and finally feel good about themselves.

Photo 1: Group Photo, Great Wall 2015, Photo 2: Marquis Washington, Great Wall 2018, Photo 3: Family Photo Great Wall, April 2018, Photo 4: Jesse with Participants in 2019, Photo 5: David and Family, Great Wall 2018, Photo 6: Great Wall 2017

Your support ensures more rituals, milestones, and celebrations will be celebrated with our community over the next 30 years. Plus, for the month of September, all gifts made in honor of our 30th Anniversary will be matched dollar for dollar up to $30,000 thanks to a generous gift from The Owens Foundation. Please click here to make a gift.

The post The Beginning of the Great Wall appeared first on Cara Collective.

To honor 30 years of Cara’s work to eradicate poverty, we are sharing the stories behind the rituals, milestones, and celebrations that have helped build the spirit of our community. In this story, Managing Director of Cleanslate, Brady Gott, shares how we recognize our standout Cleanslate workers with the Cleanslater of the Month award.

A Point of Pride

“We were a couple years into Cleanslate’s existence and we were really looking for an opportunity to build momentum among our crew members. Knowing that motivation is one of our organization’s core values, we wanted a way to celebrate the achievements of our crew members – something that displayed the excellent job they were doing and how they were advancing in their Cara journey.

“We thought about how our Crew Chiefs – the managers who our onsite with crew members – weren’t just supervising them on the job, but they were also coaching them and helping them grow personally and professionally.

“That was the idea behind honoring an individual crew member each month. This award has served as a monthly recognition for around ten years now. Through this ritual, staff and peers get to affirm a colleague for outstanding performance and encourage others to follow their lead.

– Brady Gott, Managing Director of Cleanslate

“It’s really become a rallying point for this community. That recognition really brings a sense of community around the fact that they are selected by their peers – it’s strength, it’s encouragement, it’s a rush of excitement. I really see that as a big part of the community building for our Cleanslate participants.

“This award became a real point of pride for each recipient – both in their confidence but also for their resume.”

Our Most Valued Lessons

“The monthly winner is chosen by two groups. First, they need to be one of the top three evaluation scores for the month. Evaluations are rooted in Cara’s Workplace Competencies -professionalism, communication, customer service, time management, and conflict resolution – and they are completed by staff each day a person works.

“That means, each recipient is recognized for executing on our most valued lessons we teach.

“The top three workers are then voted on by their peers. Pre-pandemic, it was during our Friday Motivations at the Cleanslate hub. The winner would receive the most thunderous applause and cheers. During the pandemic, we had to shift to virtual voting, so our workers receive a text with the three top candidates to vote on. All our workers have the opportunity to vote for who they believe is most deserving of this honor.”

Not Just Recognizing a Job Well Done

Brett Kube, Admissions Specialist for Cara, was named Cleanslater of the Month in February 2019:

“When I’d see other people getting it previously, I’d think, ‘That’s nice; this is legit; they are super pumped. I’m not sure if I personally would be so excited if I were to get the award.’ I was wrong.

“I received the award at the end of nine months of hard work. I had been working very hard, but I didn’t know what was to come. Winning this award helped me realize what my supervisors and peers really thought of me, and weeks later, I was on the other side as a Crew Chief.”

Brady Gott: “This is not just a way to recognize a job well done, it’s also helping people achieve in their Cara journey and become ready for their future job opportunity.

“We believe that people can be inspired by the performance of others. When new crew members see how a Cleanslater of the Month performs on the job, it can really motivate them to strive to do their best too.”

Photo 1: Brett K., Cleanslater of the Month: Feb 2019, Photo 2: Spring A, Cleanslater of the Month: Jul 2020, Photo 3: Antonio, Cleanslater of the Month: 2019

Your support ensures more rituals, milestones, and celebrations will be celebrated with our community over the next 30 years. Plus, for the month of November, all gifts made in honor of our 30th Anniversary will be matched dollar for dollar up to $30,000 thanks to a generous gift from The Owens Foundation. Please click here to make a gift.

The post The Creation of ‘Cleanslater of the Month’ appeared first on Cara Collective.

We See You

Placement Announcements serve as internal notifications for each Cara participant who begins a long-term or permanent job placement. Each announcement is written by someone who worked directly with a participant on their journey. Once written, Placement Announcements are shared amongst staff, volunteers, and active participants via email.

While today’s Placement Announcements are quite personalized in nature, this was not always the case.

Joe Mutuc, Chief Business Development Officer: “I have been at Cara nearly 15 years, and Placement Announcements began even before I started. At first, they were tight and formulaic. We listed a participant’s name, their employer, and their starting salary. Over time, those writing the announcements made them more personalized. This was done to reflect the personalities and journeys of each participant featured.”

“Today, the focus of Placement Announcements is on individual stories. Each life is special and important. We see you; we see each participant and recognize them.”

“Kenon had a big smile on his face when he talked about his flexibility to explore a variety of different opportunities, including food service where he previously worked. Kenon and I soon jumped on the Lettuce/Shaws application however there was some confusion from the employer about next steps but that didn’t phase Kenon at all. He rolled with it and kept me updated each step of the way. When we did interview prep together, I could hear the excitement and confidence in his voice!”

Kenon J. Placement Announcement, by Kelly DeBouver, Senior Corporate Account Manager

Representing the Next Step

Many Placement Announcements highlight a participant’s first permanent or long-term opportunity. Others lift up advancement placements, instances when Cara participants and alumni grow in their careers with the support of our staff.

Rita Balzotti, Manager of Career Advancement & Alumni Engagement: “Advancement placements represent the next step for participants. Sometimes they are a bump up, and sometimes they are a real career move. Some kinds of advancement are documented, and others are not written down but still advance our mission of real and lasting success. All advancement placements must include a salary or position increase, and participants must keep their initial placement for 12 months.”

“Team Andrew (Kim, Aaron, Kathie, Kelly, Pat and Liz) found his skill set a good match for several opportunities with our partners. In the end, he went with The Bazaar, Inc. as a shift lead. (That Mariano’s experience paid off.) This opportunity gives Andrew a good, solid basis from which to go after a new career. It also gives him a schedule that allows him to spend time with his son. Gotta love that!”

Andrew T. Advancement Placement Announcement, by Rita Balzotti, Manager of Career Advancement & Alumni

A Source of Inspiration

Placement Announcement notifications are often daily highlights for both staff and volunteers and provide inspiration to current participants working through their own personal and professional journeys.

Joe: “Sharing Placement Announcements across the staff lets each staff person know that regardless of where they sit, they are an impactful part of a participant’s journey to gainful employment. Our mission unites; it draws people to the organization and is the guiding light behind our work, whether a staff member is participant facing or works in the back office.”

Julie Chiu, Quality and Standards Manager: “As a member of a back office team, Placement Announcements are so informative and help me stay connected to our participants’ journeys. The stories that accompany the announcements remind me of all the other successes participants may have had along the way, from creating a resume for the first time to overcoming substantial hurdles to employment.”

Judy Cole, longtime Cara volunteer: “Knowing that someone I’ve worked with has been hired lets me know that the program is working. It’s very rewarding and makes me so happy for the individual. It’s great to know that this participant is on a path to greater success.”

“When I met with Alaa about her new job, she expressed an excitement to use this opportunity for continued learning and growth and to propel herself forward in a career dedicated to special education.”

Alaa S. Placement Announcement, by Sasha Ongtengco, Former Director of Cara Connects

Nearly 2 years later, Alaa is well into her journey, continuing her work in the Evanston/Skokie School District and advancing her career through a Master’s program at University of Illinois Chicago. Her story, like each Placement Announcement we read, connects us to the important work of bringing hope, jobs, and opportunity to all who seek Cara Collective’s services.

Your support ensures more rituals, milestones, and celebrations will be celebrated with our community over the next 30 years. Please click here to make a gift.

The post The Origins of Placement Announcements appeared first on Cara Collective.

To honor 30 years of Cara’s work to eradicate poverty, we are sharing the stories behind the rituals, milestones, and celebrations that have helped build the spirit of our community. In this story, former Cara President & CEO Eric Weinheimer reveals the founding of our signature morning ritual, Motivations.

The room gasped.

“It was 2002 and Cara was a staff of eight or ten people, operating out of a convent at Old St. Patrick’s Church. We had recently lost a trainer, so I was filling in for the class while we found a replacement. The curriculum was pretty standard – how to interview, how to act on the job…but one component was that we asked people to bring a motivational saying each morning and that was how we started class.

“As I got to know the individuals better, we started talking about what was preventing them from being successful on the job. One thing that stood out was fear – fear of being employed, of being sober, of getting their children back. It was a real obstacle.

“I decided to challenge their fears. I said, ‘Tomorrow, bring your motivational saying and bring a song to sing.’ The room gasped.

“The next day, they brought in their assignment. The reaction was immediate and I knew we were on to something special.

“Soon, we started doing away with the motivational sayings and moved towards having a topic – What is your greatest fear? And from there, we began to formalize it as a staff by creating different topics and having a different leader each morning.

“We assembled the seats in the hallway facing each other, no circle yet. The hallway was so cool because you were staring right into each other’s eyes. The reactions were so overwhelming – especially when we started having executives participate and they’d become vulnerable. It was a great equalizer.

“There was a topic every day and we were just doing this for staff and participants. It was small and intimate. There was dancing, crying…We were right there on top of each other. It was a blast.”

What was that?!

“One day, I invited our founder, Tom Owens, to come. I’m at one end of the hallway, he’s at the other. People start getting up to tell their story and it’s getting emotional. I look down later and I see him weeping. He’s doing everything to keep it together and he can’t.

“He was just blown away by the experience.

“We come upstairs afterwards and he says, ‘What was that?!’ and I said it was a little exercise to get us motivated for the day. He looked at me and said, ‘You can’t do that every day?!’ And I said why can’t we? Healing comes one day at a time and that’s what we were doing together.

“Then I will never forget the expression on Tom’s face. He looked at me and said, ‘Get everyone down here. Every volunteer, every partner, every funder!’ “Right there, he was hooked.”

A room full of love.

“It was easy to adapt Motivations into a part of how we showcase the work Cara does. Sure, we can show people the jobs board with our numbers and where our trainings happen, and that’s fine, but people need to touch and feel missions and movements. They need to be part of an experience.

“People would visit Cara and say they cannot relate to our participants. They never lived in a shelter or have never struggled financially. It used to anger me because we all had fears or struggles. It’s sharing a story making a connection.

“I think part of what makes Motivations such a compelling experience, is that we relate to one another. In that circle, everyone is sharing a story. We make a connection, we move people. We are overwhelmed with the joy, generosity, vulnerability, and hospitality. It’s a room full of love. We need a space like this with joy and laughter, clapping and singing.

“The vast majority of great ideas and movements are created by a small group of people in a room somewhere. The most powerful things are the ones that are organic and you can see the handprints of the people who created it. “Motivations is a living breathing thing. It’s an experience that moves people and connects us and that’s the beauty and power of it.”

Your support ensures more rituals, milestones, and celebrations will be celebrated with our community over the next 30 years. Plus, for the month of September, all gifts made in honor of our 30th Anniversary will be matched dollar for dollar up to $30,000 thanks to a generous gift from The Owens Foundation. Please click here to make a gift.

The post The Story of Motivations appeared first on Cara Collective.

What are transitional jobs?

Transitional jobs are temporary jobs designed to help individuals build new skills and experience as they seek full-time employment. Transitional employment programs are particularly beneficial for job seekers overcoming barriers—like poverty, homelessness, lack of transportation, or long gaps in employment history, among others. It’s a way for our participants to simultaneously build their resumes and their confidence, while also earning an income.

The Benefits of Transitional Employment

Our participants find that the short-term opportunities provided through Cleanslate and Cara Connects help them:

• Apply their skills to new situations. All of our participants join us with existing strengths, talents, and interests. For example, some people are great at making conversation while others are more detail-oriented and can keep track of many different moving parts. The life skills our participants already have are valuable on-the-job skills.
• Try out a job temporarily to see if it’s a good match. Some of our participants join us with an idea of what they want to do, but others need to see what’s out there in order to determine what career path is the right fit. Getting to know our participants helps us place them in temporary positions that fit their interests, talents, and personalities. 
• Learn new skills and abilities. If participants have been out of work, have had a hard time maintaining employment in the past, or are looking to start working in a new field, transitional opportunities provide on-the-job training and learning that they can apply to a permanent position down the line. We curate opportunities for our participants to develop the expertise they need to land a quality job—from computer and customer service skills to job-specific certifications.
• Gain experience and references. Participants learn on the job and gain valuable expertise that they can turn around and list on their resumes. That way, they gain experience to add to their employment history and use it to get a permanent job in the future. Developing good working relationships with managers and supervisors also helps participants build out their professional networks and strengthen their reference lists.
• A steady paycheck. While volunteer work is also a beneficial addition to any resume, all of our transitional job opportunities are paid. We know that earning a steady income is important. That’s why we also have support in place for participants that need it—and provide free transit cards, free professional attire, and retention coaching to all participants so they can put their best foot forward.

How Does Transitional Employment Work at Cara?

For both temporary and full-time jobs, we reach out to our network of employment partners—businesses and organizations that want to hire, affect change, and make a commitment to inclusive employment. Some of the organizations where we have placed participants include Whole Foods, University of Chicago Medicine, the Chicago Transit Authority, Catholic Charities of Chicago, Eataly, ABM, and more.

If you’re interested in embarking on your journey of self-growth and gaining new skills to be successful on the job, learn more about our program or contact our team today to get started.

The post The Importance of Transitional Jobs appeared first on Cara Collective.

Here’s how our career coaches and advancement team help you navigate the job search process

An essential part of Cara’s process is helping our participants find employment that’s more than just a job—known as gainful employment. One way we do this is by providing free career coaching services to participants. 

What is a career coach?

Career coaches are professionals who specialize in career planning, resume building, negotiation, and interviewing. When you’re looking for a job or switching careers, these kinds of coaches can be key to guiding you through the process and making sure you’re successful. 

Career Coaching at Cara

At Cara, participants first work with our Placement team to get career-planning advice, resume-building experience, and job interview coaching. Following employment, Cara participants meet about once a month with an Individual Development Specialist on our Coaching team to discuss their job, goals, and any barriers getting in their way. Participants also partner with our coaches to reach their personal goals, formulate solutions to problems along the way, and seek opportunities to grow.

What really sets Cara career coaches apart is they are specifically trained to work with individuals facing socio-economic challenges that have made it difficult to find work or stayed employed in the past. And, since career guidance is such an essential part of our program and mission, these services are free for all of our participants. 

The greatest benefits of working with our career coaching team happen on a participant’s most difficult day. Having someone to vent to, remind you of your big-picture goals, and share in your progress helps keep participants on the path to success and prevents them from making decisions they may later regret. 

Whether or not you work with a career coach, there are three key steps you can take to help yourself set and stick to goals. One, find an accountability partner to keep you on track. Two, put your goals in writing and always have them in view. Three, celebrate the small accomplishments along the way. Doing these three things will be vital to your journey of self-transformation and keep you motivated while you build your career.

Words of Wisdom from our Career Coaches

Pinpointing the right career path for you is no easy task, and once you find a job, there’s still so much to navigate. Especially for individuals facing the barriers and additional challenges that come with poverty, having a career coach to guide you through the first year of work is invaluable. Here’s some of the advice our coaches share with newly employed participants to help them be successful on the job:

• • Understand your company’s policies and procedures. Your employee handbook is your best friend. Make sure to read it carefully within the first few days of starting. 
  • Take notes and ask questions when you’re new. This shows your manager that you’re ready to master your new role and learn about the company.
  • Don’t take professional criticism personally. There will almost always be feedback on the way you do your job—especially when you first start. Usually, this criticism is not a personal attack and will ultimately help you do your job better.
  • Don’t take time off a new job for at least three months. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, avoid using vacation time in the first three months of starting a job. These initial months are vital to learning the job and establishing yourself as a professional.

If you need help finding a job and think you could benefit from Cara’s program and career coaching services, get started with us today.

The post How Cara Career Coaching Helps You Get A Job appeared first on Cara Collective.

Community transformation: How to make your workplace community stronger through inclusive employment

Cara unlocks the power and purpose within our communities by mitigating generational poverty, first, through the gainful employment of our job seekers and secondly, by connecting our employers with the talent they need to thrive. Employers who practice inclusive hiring create lasting systemic change and leverage a talent pool that provides a company-wide strategic advantage—actively transforming workplace communities.

Together, Cara and our employment partners are changing the employment landscape. Here’s how you can join our efforts.

A History of Strengthening our Communities

An essential aspect of our program since the beginning, Cara’s first employment partners were the business associates and friends of our founder Tom Owens. These individuals were all dedicated to community transformation and making a positive social impact through their businesses. These initial relationships taught us about the importance of establishing deep and meaningful partnerships rather than simple transactional alliances. 

To date, some of our longest-lasting employment partners include ABM, Northwestern Medicine, JPMorgan Chase, CTA, and the University of Chicago Medical Center. Our long-term relationships have allowed us to prepare and refer handpicked job candidates for each company and position. Our deep institutional knowledge of their needs coupled with our close understanding of our candidates’ capabilities allow us to consistently match the right people with the right job, ensuring better retention.

Becoming an Employment Partner 

All of the organizations we work with have one thing in common—they’re as passionate about inclusive employment as we are. Currently, we partner with a wide variety of employers of all sizes and across industries including food service, healthcare, hospitality, wellness, janitorial, manufacturing, transportation, and more.

Employers are committed to being in an ongoing, open conversation with us. Our partnership is ever-growing and mutually-beneficial, as we collaborate closely to set goals and evolve them over time. 

We are committed to your company’s success

Our goal is to make hiring an enjoyable process for our partners by providing concierge-level services that help them reach their talent goals and contribute to community transformation. We’re able to refer uniquely qualified candidates that fit specific recruitment and retention goals because of our closely-cultivated relationships and knowledge of both our partners and participants. 

In addition to targeted referrals and hiring support, Cara provides several other key services to our employment partners around inclusive employment. These include: 

• Consulting services and exclusive training opportunities on best practices in inclusive employment
• Direct feedback on candidates’ experience navigating the application process
• Opportunities for staff to engage with Cara participants through service days, information sessions, and branded training programs 

Connecting employment partners to the community

Our program seeks to help employers become actively involved with their community and make real effort to improve it, rather than just existing inside it. Through a partnership with Cara, employers are able to take meaningful action for transforming their communities by committing to inclusive employment. 

To learn more about becoming a Cara employment partner, visit us here or contact info@carachicago.org to connect with our Business Development team. We’re so excited to partner with you—let’s get to work!

The post Meet Our Employment Partners appeared first on Cara Collective.

Why we celebrate career milestones

A cornerstone of our process at Cara is to appreciate and celebrate our participants along their journeys to meaningful employment. We know it’s difficult to maintain energy and enthusiasm throughout the entire process of finding and keeping a job—and staying motivated is key. One way to stay motivated is by being recognized for hard work. Because a lack of appreciation and recognition is one of the leading reasons people leave their jobs, our goal is to make sure Cara participants are recognized for their progress and success throughout their journeys, and especially when they achieve the ultimate career milestone of working one year on the job. 

That’s where our Great Wall comes in. This Cara staple has two major purposes: to celebrate the accomplishments of our participants and to show those who are just getting started on their Cara journey what success looks like. It’s also a powerful visual for visiting employers and community members interested in learning about our mission. 

So, what is the Great Wall? 

Back in the day, when a participant graduated after making their first year on the job, we asked them to write down a quote that motivated them to stay on their Cara journey. As these profound words began piling up, we realized that we needed a way to display them. That’s why we dedicated a wall in our Great Room to showcase our framed plaques and recognize graduates’ names, employers, and the words that inspire them. We named it the Great Wall. Eventually, because we had so many participants graduating each month, we decided to regularly rotate out the plaques on the Great Wall but display all of the names permanently on a banner for all to see. 

How We Use the Great Wall to Celebrate Career Milestones

When a participant hits one year on the job, they officially graduate from Cara. However, graduates are still encouraged to reach out for assistance to help them advance in their careers. Participants who just celebrated their one-year work anniversary return for a special Motivations and share all that they’ve accomplished in that year to an audience of their friends, family, coworkers and managers, Cara staff, and current participants. Then, they proudly take a picture with their plaque, newly displayed on the Great Wall.

The purpose of this ceremony is to emphasize the sense of pride, accomplishment, and belonging that comes with being part of this community and making it all the way through the Cara journey. To the person graduating, the entire ceremony is a victory that goes beyond the physical aspect of being showcased on the Great Wall—it represents a true personal accomplishment that can only be understood fully by other Cara alumni. 

For those just starting their Cara journeys, witnessing the Great Wall is equally if not more important because it breeds hope. Participants see the actual result of following the Cara framework—communicating with others, taking their coaches’ suggestions, and actively practicing the lessons taught in our Transformations classes—and draw on that result for motivation to continue even when things get tough.

At Cara, you won’t embark on the job search journey alone. Find and keep a quality job with us—there’s a future where your name is on the Great Wall. Reach out to our Admissions team to get started.

The post The Importance of Celebrating Career Milestones and Cara’s Great Wall appeared first on Cara Collective.

Here’s how our affiliate program works and why it’s so important 

Looking to bring Cara to your community? You’re not the only one. We also want to bring our job training services to cities that could use them, but meaningful expansion isn’t always easy or possible. Thankfully, there are plenty of organizations out there with goals similar to ours that just need help to fully develop their services. That’s where our affiliate program, created through Cara Plus, comes in. Here’s what you need to know about why this program exists and how we can work together to build a successful workforce development program in your community.

Origins

In 2015, something cool happened. Lutheran Social Services of Indiana (LSSI) reached out with an important inquiry. They were already running a successful social service agency in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and they wanted our assistance in building a workforce development program to help their clients become self-sufficient. 

Although we’d been asked about taking Cara outside of Chicago before, we liked that this request gave us the opportunity to help LSSI unlock their potential—something we do with our participants all the time. For the next year, we consulted with LSSI to help them develop a workforce program based on our model that they would run independently, but where we could provide assistance when they got stuck. In 2016, LSSI Works was launched, proving that our program didn’t have to be unique to Chicago and could be adapted to new places and contexts. Building off this model, we launched our second affiliate in 2019 with Atlanta Mission, Georgia’s largest homeless shelter, enabling them to move people experiencing homelessness to gainful employment as well. 

How to Become an Affiliate

We become affiliates with two kinds of organizations: One, organizations with a successful track record working with adults in poverty that want to add a workforce development component to their existing programs; and two, social enterprises with a workforce development focus that want to set up a more robust program to increase retention and achieve stronger outcomes for their participants.

Affiliation is a long-term partnership, so we want to be sure it’s a good fit for both parties. When we find an interested organization, we spend three to four months getting to know each other and assessing our mutual fit. We look specifically at:

• Local ecosystem and need: This is the first thing we consider, even before looking at the organization itself. What is the population of people experiencing poverty? Are there entry and mid-career jobs available for people facing barriers to employment? Is there reliable public transportation? Are there local partners and funders around to support the work? We need to make sure that the organization has the trust of the community. 
• Vision and alignment: Has this organization successfully served people experiencing poverty before? And if so, are they culturally aligned with how Cara views its role in this work? Our mission is to unlock the power and purpose within ourselves and our communities to achieve real and lasting change. Before launching an initiative, we need to make sure that the vision of the organization and our mission work together.
• Operational health and leadership: Do they have strong leadership and a good reputation in the community? Do they have the operational capacity and funding to support and grow this work? We have to ask these questions because we want the program to be sustainable for the organization. To be successful, the program needs someone leading the drive as well as people to take on the work and challenges that come with building a workforce development program.
• Drive and intent: What are this organization’s reasons for affiliating with Cara specifically? We want to make sure that the partnership is mutually beneficial, and our model may not work for every organization. It’s important to pinpoint that their drive, intent, and plan for sustainability match with ours from the get-go.
• Infrastructure: Do they have the structures—or ability to create the structures—needed to implement the program? For example, do they have space where they can provide training or the ability to track data? Adding a workforce development component can be a big task, so it’s better when we want to make sure they have the infrastructure to run—and grow—the model successfully.

Through conversations about these items, we build a relationship with the prospective affiliate’s team and get to know each other. Then, we determine together if the partnership will be successful for both of us. If the answer is yes on both sides, we move into an 8-10-month program co-creation phase.

The Affiliate Process

After determining that our two organizations will be able to work well together, we co-develop the program. To do this, we adapt the Cara model to fit in with the partner organizations, working together to fine-tune it for their population and specific needs. Throughout this process, our partner gets full access to our intellectual property. This includes our materials and strategies in addition to our thoughts on what we’ve learned from past successes and failures. 

When the affiliate program launches, it is completely owned and operated by the affiliate. We continue to provide technical assistance, which often means a lot of collaboration via phone and in-person, especially in the beginning. But, our goal is to learn from them too, to create a mutually reinforcing cycle where we all get better through different experimentations and adaptations. This way, we learn and adapt from the overall network. We appreciate that so much of this process is a learning experience for the both of us—and we enjoy the fun we have working together.

What Success Looks Like

We currently have two official affiliates—LSSI and Atlanta Mission, a multi-facility nonprofit organization that serves more than 8,000 members of Metro Atlanta’s homeless population. Together, these two organizations have successfully created 190 jobs by adopting parts of the Cara model.

Atlanta Mission bases its workforce development program Atlanta Mission @Work on our service delivery model and created 27 jobs in their first year. In 2020, they’re projected to more than double that number with the launch of their apprenticeship program. 

Every day, we learn from our affiliates. LSSI Works shifted to virtual programming overnight when COVID hit, and we learned from them how to transition some of our programs to a digital platform. In the end, these mutually beneficial partnerships are what Cara Plus is all about. 

By working with organizations who are already assets to their communities, we get to help amplify existing work and strengthen programming. That’s why we call our affiliate brand Cara Plus—because we want to supplement, not supplant, great partners in new places. If you know or work for an organization that sounds like a perfect fit, let’s figure out how we can work together.

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