Center for Working Families Program

The Center for Working Families Program (CWF) endeavors to improve job skills, help parents find good jobs, ensure access to key work supports and educate families about building assets. It provides “needs-tailored” services through three strategies that were designed in conjunction with community residents and organizations:

• With the Moving to Work Pathway, CWF prepares unemployed and underemployed residents for work, helping them find jobs that offer family supporting wages and benefits.
• Through its Moving to Wealth Pathway, CWF helps newly employed and steady workers move towards homeownership and build other assets. Retention Services, Career Coaching, and Certified Financial Planning Services are integral to participants’ success as they move along this pathway.
• The Fatherhood Initiative (FI) helps reconnect unemployed and underemployed men who have become detached from their families and community.

During the CWF Program Pilot, Moving to Work services are offered in two neighborhoods: Pittsburgh and Mechanicsville. Moving to Wealth Pathway services are being offered in all six NPU-V neighborhoods.

Community Building Program

The Community Building Program (CBP) nurtures leadership among residents, leading to increased capacity so that residents become the primary change agents and, consequently, the primary beneficiaries of community transformation. It organizes, supports and funds a variety of training, organizing and engagement activities to meet this goal:

• Community Engagement in University Avenue Development includes a series of Leadership Academies and Community Economic Development Academies for residents to provide them with the skills and knowledge they need to be active, informed partners in the planning and development of the Casey Foundation land in Pittsburgh.
• Home Grown Jobs Initiative empowers residents to attain jobs in and around their communities, targeting industries such as construction, transportation, light manufacturing/warehousing, and the service sector.
• Photo Voice nurtures resident leadership by enabling residents to use visual media to document issues impacting residents in their neighborhood and to advocate for change.
• Living Room Chats provides residents with a forum to discuss with their peers a wide range of issues of importance to them while also providing a mechanism for TCWFI and its Community Building team to learn about resident concerns.
• Community Investment Cycle is a small social entrepreneurs program that offers emerging resident leaders small grants to implement projects that strengthen social, business and faith networks in the community.