Terese琼斯: Helping Oregon’s poor forge a brighter future through education
An interest in helping people achieve their capacity to thrive is what led Terese Jones, Director of 博天堂官方’s Job Opportunity and Basic Skills (JOBS) Program, to the 人类发展领域. “我想找到一种与政策联系在一起的方式 local level and pilot some innovative approaches to addressing poverty – particularly 农村贫困，”琼斯说道.
When an opportunity came available to work with the JOBS Program at Linn-Benton 社区 College, Jones was excited to put her name in the ring. “我通往博天堂官方的道路已经被雕刻好了 by my interest in applied research, a passion for academic freedom, and the opportunity 为了创意节目，”她说.
The JOBS Program is the driving policy for how poverty is addressed in the U.S. It is administered through Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) funding. 自 1996 reform, the JOBS Program has focused on work readiness, with mandatory work requirements, making it more challenging for participants to get a GED or go to college.
“After ’96, it became about whether there were jobs out there to be had. 如果有 were, there was this idea that people don’t really need to get an education because 他们可以得到那些工作. But those aren’t generally living wage jobs, and they certainly are not jobs that will transform the context of a local family and change their trajectory,” 琼斯说.
Jones was curious about what could be done to increase access to educational opportunities 通过就业计划. She was also drawn to serving the community in a tangible and specific capacity in a specific geographic region, because much of the policy that drives poverty intervention programs is decided at the local level.
Jones and her staff bring experience to deepen the bench of tool and resources that 一个学生必须克服障碍. “就业计划是一个丰富的机会 for participants to partner with an advocate who is knowledgeable about workforce development and education, to journey together along this challenging road … identifying 障碍和寻找消除障碍的方法.”
All of their participants have children, and they are coming from poverty.
The small team of five is responsible for administering the JOBS Progam for the Lebanon, Albany and Corvallis DHS offices, which means they serve a population that stretches from Alsea to Monroe, and all the way to Cascadia and Jefferson. 琼斯，作为鞋底 faculty member, does all program design, development, and evaluation.
琼斯来自俄勒冈州的达拉斯. 在获得学士学位后 from the University of Oregon she worked in Seattle as a liaison to the criminal justice system, working with people whose sentences were up but who could not get released because they didn’t have an address that the court would approve
Prior to her work in Seattle, Jones did not know much about the system. 她知道 of disparities in incarcerations, but she was not familiar with issues exiting the 在克服贫困方面的制度. “在那之后，我意识到没有地址 poverty if we don’t address our criminal justice system,” 琼斯说.
Jones’ new knowledge carried over to her work in the JOBS Program at 博天堂官方, where—in partnership with Qui Qui Law and partner attorney Michael Zhang—she and her team sponsor clinics for people to get their paperwork, fingerprinting, and notary services for 免费删除.
“At some point you should be finished with the court-ordered consequences of your 犯罪，”她说. “Expungement is a critical part of helping people present themselves in the workforce in a way that is desirable and that will allow them to be competitive.”
In addition to the expungement clinics, the JOBS Program at 博天堂官方 offers four main 服务类型. Work readiness programming is for those who are not quite ready to start work due to factors such as childcare, housing, or mental health, but for 工作是谁的终极目标. 通过工作经验计划，参与者 partner with a community business or agency to gain experience through unpaid internships. The Trades Navigation Program helps participants identify tangible educational goals and then navigate the array of educational providers to determine the best match. Finally, Self-Initiated Training is for degree-seeking 学生s who work with Jones 以及她的团队提供更强有力的教育支持.
The idea of first-generation 学生s in higher education settings being unfamiliar with ‘how to college’ is the foundation of the theoretical model of symbolic interaction 琼斯在她的程序设计中使用的.
“我们从互动中创造意义. 我们环顾四周，看到事物，赋予其意义 to them, and respond according to that meaning,” described Jones. “如果你从来没有 seen anyone go to school, it’s not part of your meaning-making map … Sometimes it’s “我不知道怎么演这个角色.’”
The JOBS Program team helps participants understand how to perform the role of being a 学生 and project it forward to a vision of what could be. “我们也帮助他们 gain the lexicon needed to get the benefits that they are allowed and to be able to 获得大学级别的服务. 我们消除带宽的压力，这样他们就可以 专注于学校，”琼斯说.
“If you give them the resources that the average 学生 has, and if you take away the stressors that the average 学生 doesn’t have, they perform just like the average 学生. A lot of people don’t realize that it’s a full-time job to be poor.”