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May 18, 2007 |
FUNDING TO SUPPORT A FRESH START
A state grant will help displaced homemakers
take the next step at Clark College
VANCOUVER, Wash. – A state grant will fund two years of classes at Clark College for displaced homemakers. The $110,000 grant, provided by the Displaced Homemakers Advisory Committee of the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, will support approximately 165 displaced homemakers in eight classes over the two years of the grant. The grant, which was awarded for the 2007-2009 biennium, will also support staff members who provide information and referrals through phone calls and appointments.
Clark Eligibility Programs Manager Becky Merritt said, “Our first grant was awarded in 1997, so we are completing our 10th year. This new grant will take us into our second decade, which is exciting because it will enable us to provide additional educational opportunities for our community.”
The program is open to women and men. Over 800 women have participated in this class at Clark since 1997. There is no charge to the participants if they are eligible, and they earn six college credits. Most are struggling financially when they start the class. All of them are in a life transition, usually because of divorce or separation or because their spouse has died, become disabled or is chronically unemployed. The participants are trying to figure out what choices they have so that they can financially care for themselves and their families. They participate in a class that runs for four weeks, Monday through Friday, each quarter. The staff continues to work with them as advisors when they begin their education plans.
Clark College Interim President Robert K. Knight said, “YWCA Clark County provides important support to the college’s Displaced Homemaker’s program through counseling and referrals to the program. The program also receives referrals from attorneys, judges, churches, friends and family, past participants, counselors and advisors. It addresses a real need in our community.”
The class centers on goal setting, choosing a career, educational planning and budgeting. Becky Merritt noted, “We focus on transferable skills. We know that what these women have they done in the past can help them in a new career.”
Over the years, women who have taken part in the Clark College Displaced Homemaker program have found jobs in nursing, social services, medicine, education and the hospitality industry.
In 1979, the Washington Legislature established the Displaced Homemaker Act to provide critical services to displaced homemakers — women or men whose primary job has been that of a homemaker, dependent on the financial support of another, but who have lost that support because of the death, divorce, disability, or unemployment of a spouse.
The grant request was submitted by Eligibility Programs Manager Becky Merritt, with support from Clark’s Director of Grants Development Katharine Brokaw as part of a college-wide effort to increase grant support through the college’s Office of Planning and Advancement.
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