An Education in What's Possible

Program Allows Parents to Develop Confidence as They Train for a Career

Two years ago, Taishia Jenerette was holding down two jobs, caring for her 6-year-old daughter and struggling as a single mother with too little time and too many bills. Then a friend told her about an unusual Fairfax County program that provides low-income single parents with career counseling and professional certificate courses -- free.

"I would have never been able to go to school if not for the Education for Independence program," said Jenerette, 32, who quit her part-time job at Macy's to make time for night classes. "I had looked into it so many times, but I didn't have the money."

In a ceremony recently at the Fairfax County Government Center, Jenerette graduated with a medical assistant certificate that will help her qualify for a promotion, and a raise, at the Virginia Department of Rehabilitative Services, where she prepares disability cases for review. But more important than the certificate, Jenerette said, the program has given her confidence.

"I was so scared to go back to school because I didn't want to fail," said Jenerette, of Centreville. "I said if I can get through this two years, I can do anything."

That attitude is what Education for Independence is meant to engender, said Lorraine Obuchon, one of two career counselors who work with the program's approximately 120 participants.

"There's such a transformation," Obuchon said of the women -- and they are almost exclusively women, though single fathers may also enroll. "They emerge completely different people: confident, trained in a new career field. They're basically ready to take on the world."

Single parents 18 and older who meet income guidelines and are eligible to work in the United States can qualify for the program by applying any time of the year, Obuchon said. Once accepted, parents must participate in a series of five career development workshops before they begin taking courses through the Fairfax County Public Schools Adult and Community Education program. At the workshops, students discuss workplace expectations and learn interview skills and résumé writing, she said.

The program, which Obuchon said saves students an average of $1,600 in tuition, was started in 1985 as a federal workforce development program and has been paid for since 1998 with grants from the county and Capital One, among others. The goal is to offer training for jobs that pay a living wage in fields such as accounting, desktop publishing and medicine, Obuchon said. Graduates earn the certificates needed to work as a dental assistant, a medical insurance biller or phlebotomist, for example. That's often a first step on the way to further education, said Obuchon, pointing to Donna Ponzette as an example.

Ponzette, a 43-year-old mother of three, graduated from the physical therapy aide program in 2007 and has continued at Northern Virginia Community College, where she is taking prerequisites for a physical therapy degree. She also works part time, volunteers at Mary Washington Hospital and is nurturing a fledgling organization to help victims of domestic violence.

The classes she took "inspired me," said Ponzette, of Centreville and Fredericksburg. "If I had not gone into the [Education for Independence] program, I may not have continued and gone on to college."

Participants also gain a support network, Obuchon said.

Khadija Yahyaoui of Springfield, who moved from Morocco six years ago and has a 3-year-old daughter, said she decided when her marriage failed to return to her dream of becoming a cardiologist. She just finished what she said was the first step, earning a certificate in medical insurance billing. In class, she met Weris Farah of Alexandria, who cares for her ill father and two teenage daughters.