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Achievement Center helps fill job gap

St. Petersburg College's Midtown campusand WorkNet Pinellas are helping to lower the unemployment rate in Midtown, administrators from the college and the agency say.

By HEATH HOOPER
Published April 23, 2006

Since 2000, unemployment in St. Petersburg has decreased from 5.2 percent to 3.1 percent last December, according to city figures. During that same period, Midtown's unemployment dropped from 14.03 percent to a projected 8.43 percent.

Midtown's current projected unemployment rate is above the national average, but city officials say the actual number is likely lower as hard statistics aren't available for areas with fewer than 100,000 residents.

"We've got a lot of extraordinary things happening in Midtown because the city has made it priority No. 1," said Dave Goodwin, economic development director for St. Petersburg. "There's been a directed effort to improve employment and community opportunities, and some of the fruits of that labor are being borne."

Educational outlets like St. Petersburg College's Midtown campus and "one-stop" help centers like the WorkNet Pinellas Midtown center, both at 1048 22nd St. S, are part of that effort.

Latricia Robinson, 33, first came to WorkNet Pinellas in 2002 after she was laid off from Bank of America.

Robinson, who lost her job just as she began her first semester as an education major at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, found it difficult to manage all the different responsibilities in her life.

"It's very trying to juggle two kids, school, and trying to find a job," Robinson said. She went to the Midtown location to sign up for child care assistance.

Though she found her new job as a customer service representative at a medical supply company on her own, Robinson said that WorkNet helped her get money for child care while she was unemployed.

She said that the service was helpful, but she sometimes found it difficult to find time to get to the office and wait for her turn at the busy location.

WorkNet Pinellas began in 2001 as a joint venture between Pinellas County and Workforce Florida Inc., the primary work force policy organization in the state.

Its one-stop centers provide a number of services for unemployed residents, such as job placement, temporary cash assistance and access to special services like child care.

Jerome Salatino, director of planning and development for WorkNet Pinellas, said the Midtown location helps about 1,600 people per month. Its mission, he said, is to connect people to the jobs for which they are best suited.

"We try to work with an individual to match them with an employer," he said. "If someone seems to have a good ground for what they want to do, we can pretty much work with them."

If the individual isn't sure about what he or she wants to do, WorkNet has a number of programs and aptitude tests to help.

Around the corner from WorkNet sits the entrance to St. Petersburg College's Midtown location, which was created to help students who might have difficulty getting to the college's other campuses, said Keron Jean-Baptiste, an academic adviser at the branch.

The campus, which caters to almost 300 students, will celebrate its three-year anniversary in September. It offers general courses to help students become better qualified for employment.

One of the ways the campus tries to help is through Community Reach-Out Program sessions, tutoring for area residents of all ages, designed to help combat high dropout rates.

"We're offering tutoring, and if people are looking for help, they can find it in CROP," said Hildegarde Shirley, the program's administrative coordinator.

The Reach-Out program meets Tuesdays through Fridays and offers help in all subjects. There are extended sessions for math on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Enrollment in the program is free, but space is limited. The program averages about 35 students per session, Shirley said.

The two groups work closely together, as WorkNet sees a number of students from its neighbor across the hall, serving as a career services center for students.

Heath Hooper is a reporter for the Neighborhood News Bureau, a program of the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

[Last modified April 23, 2006, 10:38:24]