Integrity in partnership with the Center for Workforce Inclusion are initiating a new to program as part of the NextFifty Initiative that will target job training and placement to formerly incarcerated job seekers over age 50 living in the Westside community of Atlanta. In addition to job skill training, the NextFifty Initiative will bring together a coalition of partners to assist clients with a range of obstacles to employment including unstable housing or homelessness, poor physical health, mental health, and substance abuse problems, food insecurity, lack of transportation, and the stigma that incarceration carries.
The NextFifty operates out of a number of program sites in Colorado. The new Integrity/CWI program is the first NextFifty site in Georgia. CWI Labs’ s partnership with the NextFifty Initiative in Denver, Colorado and led to seven out of every eight participating older, ex-offender clients finding full-time employment.
“Older, formerly incarcerated people face high barriers to employment under the best of circumstances,” said Gary A. Officer, Founder, and CEO of CWI Labs. “As they attempt to reenter the workforce in a post-COVID world, however, they will face increased competition, fewer employers, and the need for skills that did not exist when many of them entered the justice system.” The program will counter this current reality of unemployment among formerly incarcerated people where the employment rate is, on average, five times higher than the unemployment rate for the general U.S. population. To find out more about this program, you can call the office at (404) 853-1780.