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Topics: Work

Index

Chapter 1: Awakening to a Crisis
Chapter 2: Bringing Power back to the People
Chapter 3: Laying the Groundwork
Chapter 4: Working with the Business Community
Chapter 5: Designing QUEST
Chapter 6: Persuading the Powers
Chapter 7: Project Quest in Action
Chapter 8: The Community Connection
Chapter 9: Making the Grade
Chapter 10: The Future of Project QUEST

Contents

Chapter 8: The Community Connection

Chapter 9: Making the Grade

Chapter 10: The Future of Project QUEST
Beyond San Antonio
Chronology of Project QUEST

Chapter Eight: The Community Connection

"My husband was out of work, and he was jealous that I was studying so hard in school," she began. "He was real possessive; he used to follow me to school every day and wait outside my class until class was out. I couldn't study under that kind of pressure. I dropped out. I finally had to divorce him."

Mrs. Criado nodded sympathetically. "Well, QUEST can give you a second chance. But this program isn't quick and easy. It's hard work, with a lot of studying. Are you willing to work that hard for two years?"

The young woman nodded resolutely. "Just give me the chance," she said. "I can do it."

Community commitment: Almost every day a scene like this takes place at the 15 neighborhood outreach committees COPS and Metro Alliance set up throughout the city to take applications and interview candidates for QUEST an entirely new community infrastructure. By January 1994, after a year in operation, they had screened more than 3,200 applicants and invested 18,000 hours of their personal time.

Many worthwhile programs have quickly withered after initial community enthusiasm and participation waned. But QUEST continues to benefit from the active participation of the organizations that created it.

"Because we have the outreach teams, because we're not just an office downtown, we keep ownership of QUEST in the community; it's not just another bureaucracy," asserted Sister Gabriella Lohan of Metro Alliance. "I think it makes a connection between the community and the applicants."

The Eyes of the Community

Like many outreach committee members, Eva Criado spreads the word about QUEST every chance she gets. "When I'm in a restaurant and I see a young guy washing dishes, I ask him if he would like to go back to school, and I give him an application. Or a lady may tell me her daughter is pregnant and has had to drop out of school; I'll give her a flyer about QUEST."

COPS and Metro Alliance had already begun educating San Antonio about the need for job training during the creation of QUEST. "After the program was in place and we went back to the community, recruiting applicants was never really a problem for us," said Father Wauters. "After two and half years of discussing this, people were sophisticated in the whole job-training area." Each time the organizations hold an action that talks about job training, or the newspaper runs an article about Project QUEST, phones ring in the Metro Alliance and COPS offices, with callers asking for information about the program.

About 150 people from COPS and Metro Alliance congregations, mostly leaders who are well-known in their churches and communities, have volunteered to serve at least five hours per week interviewing applicants for QUEST at the neighborhood outreach centers. They work in teams of three, interviewing each applicant individually for about half an hour. They start by recounting the history of QUEST and how much is riding on the trainees' success.

The outreach volunteers explain the rigors that lie ahead for successful applicants. "We love these kids, they come out of our communities, and we want them to know ahead of time what they're getting into," said Metro Alliance leader Marcia Welch. "We tell them the program is really not for people who want an easy way," agreed Metro Alliance's Genevieve Flores. "It's for people who have initiative, who want to be somebody but who have barriers." If applicants are serious about changing their lives, QUEST gives them the opportunity and the support they need.

"Every applicant has his own unique story," said outreach committeemember Avertano Palomo, a long-time COPS leader. "Why they didn't finish high school, how their family is dysfunctional, why they got into drugs, how they have to take care of their young kids because they got married at 17, and can't afford tuition, all sorts of domestic problems. We hear a lot of stories about previous experiences with job training programs where people paid a lot of money and got worthless training. We listen, and tell them how QUEST can get them help so they can concentrate on their studies."

Why are applicants willing to come to QUEST and share their stories?

"They know us and they trust us," explained Eva Criado. "When they come in, most of them look a little scared. We make them feel at ease. We say 'Look, it's just us. You can tell us anything.' We know many of them, and they know us; they're our people. The trust is there because we are one of them and we understand them."

The interview teams help applicants choose whether to advance to the next step, which is an interview at the QUEST offices, with a Project QUEST intake counselor. The interview teams' assessments then form part of the intake counselors' evaluations.

A Continuing Commitment

"Our dedication is there because the need is there," emphasized Criado. "The people in COPS and Metro don't just think of their families or themselves, they think of the community. I'm not doing this for my children, but for everybody," she said firmly. "I feel for my people."

"There's something in this for us, too," Sister Gabriella admitted. "It's very rewarding to see people move ahead, to make a life for themselves." Eva Criado agreed. "I've been in COPS 18 years, and we've built bridges, libraries, homes, streets but this is human development. It's giving people a livelihood."

Through the outreach committees and the continuing involvement Metro Alliance and COPS, Project QUEST is inextricably tied to the grassroots where it was born. This bond ensures that the values of COPS and Metro-- accountability, building relationships with other people and institutions, people taking charge of their lives--are reflected in the program and its participants. The outreach committees institutionalize the new relationships between the stakeholders in Project QUEST and the community it serves.

Chapter 9: Making the Grade

The next semester she took a reduced load, but continued to work as a typist, nurse's aid, and a fast food clerk. She determinedly kept up with her children's school and Cub Scouts. Piecing together the money and time to take classes when she could, she slowly accumulated credits over several years. Often she could not complete the semester, but kept trying.

She was accepted into a registered nurse program in December 1990. She completed the first semester, but failed all three courses her second semester. Exhausted, frustrated, and discouraged, she began to lose hope.

One day, Marcia Welch, a Metro Alliance leader at Scott's church, asked her why she wasn't working. Scott explained how hard it was to work when it meant losing health and welfare benefits that she needed to support her family. So Welch told her about a new program called QUEST that Metro Alliance was co-sponsoring. The next day, Scott went down to the church to interview for it.

Starting over: Lupe Alonzo always wanted to go to college, but after she got pregnant at age 18, the lifelong San Antonio resident had to go to work. "In the Mexican American culture, a woman's job was to take care of your family," Alonzo explained. "You work at whatever you can." She worked as a retail clerk and as a substitute teacher, never earning much above minimum wage. Twice she tried to go to college, but her husband didn't support her. When he left, she had to work to feed the family. She almost went into debt to pay for an eight-week home nursing assistant course. But that job still paid poorly, was physically demanding, and had no future. As she approached age 40, Alonzo knew she had to do something to turn her life around. One Sunday, her priest told her about Project QUEST.

A fresh start: Mike Gonzales, a 34-year-old San Antonio native, enlisted in the Marine Corps out of high school. After six years of active duty, ready to settle down, he went into debt to pay a Houston trade school to train him to be a mortician. Though he enjoyed the work, which brought him back to his hometown, Gonzales soon realized that the career itself offered little opportunity for advancement and had a much greater supply of employees than demand. That's when his aunt, a leader in COPS, told him about Project QUEST.

The concept of Project QUEST appealed to employers, politicians, and people in the neighborhoods because it was designed with their input. But after a year of operation, QUEST has already won popularity with another important group: the people in the program.

Team Spirit

Getting into Project QUEST means two or more demanding years of education, weekly counseling, testing and hard work with no guarantee of success. Trainees must turn in attendance sheets for classes and report cards to their QUEST counselors. The amount of work these and other participants put in matches the sweat equity contributed by COPS and Metro Alliance leaders to create the program in the first place.

QUEST is no easy ride, and the passengers have to push. "I was working at the church, going to school, and still trying to take care of the family," recalled Cynthia Scott, who in September 1993 became QUEST's first graduate. "You can't tell the kids they're going to have to wait for dinner. You have to cook, make sure they do their homework. You still have to be a parent."

Lupe Alonzo has to work even harder because she's been out of school for so long. Having completed her remedial work, Alonzo is now in nursing classes at St. Phillips college. Besides taking 90 hours of classes this semester and caring for her three children by herself, Alonzo still does some part-time home health care to pay the bills. "I study during lunch, at home--any time I'm sitting I have to grab a book because I don't have any time to waste," she says. "My girls were laughing at me last night because I was studying anatomy while we were waiting in line at the video store."

Like family: Faced with such demands, QUEST students need support. IAF works on the principle that people become powerful when they work together to accomplish goals. Similarly, QUEST offers support to its participants by helping create a team spirit. QUEST requires participants to meet in weekly group motivational sessions.

The program also offers opportunities for participants to get away from training and school. It has sponsored picnics, cookouts and softball and volleyball games for QUEST participants, staff and their families. Besides building solidarity among the participants and providing a break from the pressure of intensive study, such activities remind all concerned that QUEST is about more than a program--it's about people. Community college instructors report that Project QUEST students are easily identifiable in class by their enthusiasm and participation. They have formed study groups that meet in homes and on campus. They've even come up with their own name; they call themselves "QUESTers."

"We're kind of like a family," Mike Gonzales said. "The QUESTers will get together at lunch or at breaks and discuss our ups and downs. It's like going to school with your family and having someone to express yourself to."

Cynthia Scott, despite her midnight shift, is so grateful for the help she's received from the community that she's eager to give something back. She does volunteer tutoring in pharmacology for current QUEST trainees. "I go to the motivational meetings and show them what it's going to take. I tell them it's hard: you have to give things up to make it through."

A No-Excuse Program

In fact, the direct training costs of tuition and books represent only slightly more than one-quarter of QUEST's total costs. Its largest single expense is child care, [see Figure 9.1, not available online] amounting to almost as much as tuition and books combined. For Lupe Alonzo, as for many others, that has made the difference. "I work from 7 a.m. to noon, study from noon to 3 p.m., pick up the girls from school, then go to class from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m.," she says. "I couldn't do it without night care for the kids." Trainees say the counseling and financial help make the difference between QUEST and other programs. The ability to call their counselor when they were struggling with difficult courses, or a child's illness, or some other personal or family crisis, has kept many trainees from dropping out and kept them focused and motivated.

Personal touch: Alonzo, who hadn't been in school in almost two decades, struggles daily with feeling intimidated by younger students who had the opportunities she lacked and, to her, seem more knowledgeable, more articulate and better prepared. "It has been hard," she confesses. "When get those feelings of no self-confidence, I talk to Mary Pena, my counselor, and she brings me back down. She's my support, the one I let out steam with."

"They're so personal with you, you have to be honest with them about anything that's causing you problems, and that helps them help you," agreed Cynthia Scott. "I will never forget the day I told [QUEST director] Jack Salvadore I was graduating. He was so happy that tears started rolling down his face. That's personal."

By removing such distractions, QUEST puts the responsibility for success squarely on the shoulders of its trainees. "Project QUEST is a no-excuse program," declared Lupe Alonzo. "There's no excuse not to be in class. If the need is really there, they're going to help you. They help find you an apartment to live in if you need it. If my car broke down, they'd give me the money to fix it. Project QUEST is here for you, they're giving you the support, the counselors, anything you need. You can't say there's nobody to talk to, because they're there. You can't say you don't have money for school or books or rent, because it's there. Everything is there for you. There's no excuse for me not to do well."

The support services also create a sense of obligation that compels trainees to work harder. "They're helping me by paying the bill, so the least I can do is sacrifice a little bit," said Gonzales. "It's like having another set of parents: if you make the grade, they're happy to pay the bills."

Positive results: The support is paying off. "We've been impressed by the QUEST graduates we've seen so far," said Baptist Hospital's Peggy Brown. "The advantage they have is those social and economic resources provided by QUEST that other students don't have. We've found that the majority of attrition in health care training programs is due not to performance, but socioeconomic problems. These folks are relieved of child care and other worries because QUEST has these other services in place."

Sacrifice: The help comes with a price: accountability. Not only must trainees keep their grades up, but they are required to turn in attendance records and participate in the weekly motivational meetings. The QUEST approach has been called "tough love," because while it offers help, it requires great sacrifice: time, money, hard work. Those who don't keep up their end of the bargain are out of the program.

QUEST is a rough ride, not a free ride. But participants say the destination is worth the journey. The best spur to sticking with a tough program is the knowledge that a job is definitely waiting for those who graduate. "Once I got into the LVN program," said Alonzo, "and I knew I'd have a job that paid a lot better and was more satisfying, I thought, 'I can stick it out another year, no matter how hard it is.' I could see the light at the end of the tunnel."

Life Lessons

As a result, both Gonzales and Alonzo plan to pursue the more advanced registered nurse (RN) certification after completing the necessary work as an LVN. Gonzales is also thinking of adding physical therapist training to combine with his nursing credentials, a lucrative combination. "They've opened my eyes to what an education can do for you," he said.

Success in QUEST's rigorous courses also imbues participants with new and deserved self-confidence. "You can really see the change in attitude in the people who are in QUEST," said Avertano Palomo, an outreach committee member who has stayed in touch with several QUESTers.

Other benefits: That change in attitude affects more than just the trainees. "One woman whose husband is in QUEST told me that it has made such a difference in their marriage since this man's self-esteem has been raised so much by being in the program," reported Sister Gabriella Lohan. "Before, he couldn't get a good job. Now he's doing very well in class, and it's doing wonders for their life."

Gonzales passed the lessons he's learned down to his four school-age children, with whom he often does homework side-by-side. "QUEST has allowed me to be a better role model in academics with the kids," he explained. "I tell them that doing well means giving up the things I have to give up in order to succeed. QUEST instills that self-motivation and dignity." Since Gonzales entered QUEST, his children's grades have improved.

As the first QUESTers move into the world of work, they provide living proof to those who follow that hard work in a supportive environment can bring success. "People look at me and say, 'Cynthia, if you can do it, I know I can do it,'" said Scott. "One woman told me, 'Every time I come into this [QUEST] office, I look at your graduation picture and I say, I will be here too someday."'

Note: Cynthia Scott began her work as an LVN in fall 1993. At the time of publication, Mike Gonzales was completing his final semester of college LVN training and had been accepted into an LVN program that was to begin in summer 1994. Lupe Alonzo had finished her remedial classes and had two semesters of courses in nursing left to complete.

Chapter 10: The Future of Project QUEST

At the beginning of 1994, IAF organizations in nine cities were conducting at least preliminary efforts aimed at bringing some sort of job training program to their communities. These efforts to foster job training programs in other cities raise a critical question: Is QUEST replicable? San Antonio possessed some unique advantages, including grassroots organizations that have transformed the political process to make it receptive to such projects; political leaders who were sympathetic to IAF goals; business leaders with a broad concept of enlightened self-interest who supported QUEST; a growing economy that created a demand for high-skill jobs. "If you don't have a growing pie," acknowledged Tom Frost, "you have a zero-sum game and everyone is thinking they're going to take their piece of it away from everyone else. We were lucky in that we had a growing economy."

But Frost also credits COPS and Metro Alliance with playing a crucial role in bringing business, political and working-class constituencies together in San Antonio in a way that made QUEST possible. "It's important that all elements of the community feel they're part of the decisions. If you don't have a good political process and people don't work together, then the economics don't come together."

Bob McPherson has been consulting with IAF leaders in four other Texas cities, with the aim of creating QUEST-style programs there. "QUEST isn't perfectly transferable anywhere," he conceded. "You can never take a specific design for a given labor market and just place it in another one. There are cultural, political and economic differences. The basic model for QUEST would certainly work i other communities. Whether it'll work in every city, I don't know. But when you get into those cities and do the hard labor market research--actually get inside those firms--you'll find some jobs that will be opening up."

State leaders, impressed with IAF's work on QUEST, believe the model can be extended to other Texas cities. "One of the real keys to QUEST is that there was a commitment of local funds," said TEC administrator Bill Grossenbacher. "From a state and legislative perspective, the idea of a dollar partnership between the state and local areas was very attractive." Just as COPS and Metro leveraged state dollars to attract funding from the city of San Antonio, locally raised financing may attract matching help from the state government. Finally, if QUEST proves successful in San Antonio, IAF organizations in other cities will be able to point to that experience as proof that city and business investment in long-term job training is a low-risk, high-return proposition.

Model for the Nation?

"All the research indicates that those countries where people are doing work that is fairly skilled and highly productive are going to do well in the next century," asserts Bob McPherson. "If this country is going to be competitive in world markets, businesses are going to require more training for people providing different services. Employers are increasingly needing workers who need more training than typical on-the-job training can provide. Few institutions are in place to provide that kind of training. In that sense, there is a bright future for a QUEST kind of model."

There is nothing else quite like Project QUEST in the United States today. Given the widely recognized pressing need for a new national investment in long-term training for high-skill jobs, many eyes will be turned toward San Antonio to see how well this "investing in people" strategy works. The program's performance over the next few years will likely determine whether QUEST will become the prototype for the nation's job training program.

Beyond San Antonio

• Dallas: Dallas Area Interfaith has secured the support of the city's top corporate decision-makers for a demonstration project in the new job training strategy. The head of the Dallas Citizens Council--composed of some of the region's most important CEOs--and the head of the Greater Dallas Chamber of Commerce pledged that they will work to find 600 jobs that offer at least $9 an hour, benefits, and career opportunities. The Private Industry Council (PIC) of Dallas committed $25,000 to fund the initial concept design. The governor committed $1 million for the 1994-95 operating year, conditional upon local governments and the PIC raising matching local funds.
  
• Fort Worth: Fort Worth and Tarrant County, long dependent on military related spending, have suffered more than most communities during the defense cutbacks of recent years. Allied Communities of Tarrant (ACT) responded by organizing hundreds of conversations among employers, training institutions, economic development personnel, local officials and others to explore ways to create new access to training and jobs for dislocated or underemployed workers. As of April 1994, employers and unions from health care, construction and transportation had committed to collaborate with training institutions, government officials and ACT to design a strategy and had committed more than 400 jobs. The governor committed a $1 million challenge grant to the Fort Worth and Tarrant County stakeholders. The City of Fort Worth made a $100,000 down payment on the design and start-up phase of an effort that resembles Project QUEST. Southwestern Bell committed $20,000.
  
• Rio Grande Valley: The Valley encompasses approximately 30 small cities at the end of the Rio Grande River. Although it is one of the poorest regions of the United States, the Valley is experiencing dramatic job growth and shortages of skilled workers as a result of growing manufacturers and trade with Mexico. Valley Interfaith found that hospitals spend several million dollars a year to recruit nurses from as far away as Canada and the Philippines. Manufacturing companies need hundreds of skilled machinists and tool-and-die workers. Valley Interfaith is working to bring together employers like these, local colleges and universities, and local governments. The governor has committed $50,000 for their initial work.
  
• Houston: Home to 17 Fortune 500 companies and the nation's second-busiest ports, Houston has undergone far-reaching economic changes in the last decade. Employment in manufacturing and mining dropped sharply as energy-related businesses shrank, while employment in health care and business services boomed. Leaders of TMO (The Metropolitan Organization) secured the commitment of the mayor to $300,000 for the planning and start-up phase of a Houston Strategy. They also secured the tentative commitment of the business community to ask their members to designate 1,000 good jobs.

Chronology of Project QUEST

Spring - Summer 1990: COPS and Metro Alliance begin house meetings and research actions on job training.

Summer 1990: COPS and Metro Alliance vote job training as one of the primary issues for the organizations to pursue in the coming year.

October 28, 1990: Texas Industrial Areas Foundation first state convention, held in San Antonio, names job training one of four items on the public agenda. Gubernatorial candidates Ann Richards and Clayton Williams are invited to address the convention. Richards accepts and agrees to support the agenda. Williams does not attend. Richards' election puts job training high on the state priority list.

January 1991: Members of COPS call for a complete restructuring of San Antonio's job training programs. City Council passes a resolution of support.

March 1991: In accountability sessions, city council and mayoral candidates pledge to work with Metro Alliance and COPS to find $5 million for job training programs in the city budget.

July 1991: Tom Frost hosts first meeting with major San Antonio employers to discuss job training.

August 1991: COPS and Metro Alliance leaders announce their plan to train San Antonians for high-skill jobs in growing industries such as health care and electronics. Local business leaders pledge public support for the draft job training proposal and commit several hundred jobs to the program. Following meetings with editorial boards to explain the program, both local newspapers endorse the concept in editorials the following week.

September 3, 1991: Rally at City Hall with Metro Alliance and COPS leaders calling on Mayor Nelson Wolff and the city council to "Invest in Us." Standing on the City Hall steps, Wolff and council members sign a public pledge to earmark $2 million in federal and city funds to the program. San Antonio Works board passes resolution supporting use of $2.3 million in JTPA bonus funds for the pilot project.

September 12, 1991: The City Council, in a special budget meeting, votes unanimously to approve $400,000 for the pilot project, and to seek $1.6 million from other city sources.

November 17, 1991: Gov. Richards pledges $2.5 million in state funds for the IAF job training program at the COPS fall assembly, attended by 1,500 leaders and political leaders. Tom Frost, on behalf of other business leaders, announces that 650 jobs have been identified at 26 local companies.

January 1992: Conceptual design for Project QUEST completed.

March 1992: City council formally receives the $2.5 million state grant for the $6.5 million program. The Citv of San Antonio matches the grant with $1.6 million of city funds and $400,000 from CDBG funds.

May 26, 1992: Jack Salvadore hired by QUEST steering committee.

August 1992: Project QUEST incorporated.

September 27, 1992: At a delegates assembly and accountability session, three thousand COPS and Metro Alliance leaders announce to Gov. Ann Richards that QUEST is officially underway.

October 1992: COPS and Metro Alliance leaders establish community outreach teams and begin accepting applications for Project QUEST.

January 1993: The first 140 enrollees in QUEST begin classes at Alamo Community College District campuses.

September 1993: Cynthia Scott becomes QUEST's first graduate from St. Philip's College and begins work as a licensed vocational nurse at Baptist Medical Center.

March 1994: 574 people are enrolled in Project QUEST training.

June 1994: 650 people are enrolled in Project QUEST.

Index

Chapter 1: Awakening to a Crisis
Chapter 2: Bringing Power back to the People
Chapter 3: Laying the Groundwork
Chapter 4: Working with the Business Community
Chapter 5: Designing QUEST
Chapter 6: Persuading the Powers
Chapter 7: Project Quest in Action
Chapter 8: The Community Connection
Chapter 9: Making the Grade
Chapter 10: The Future of Project QUEST