Course Assignment

1. Overview
Introduction
Check your Understanding
Review

2. Gaining Employment
Overview
 This week you have the opportunity to either research or use
your own personal story about how a former homeless
individual/family will go about gaining long term
employment, sustaining such employment and becoming self
sufficient.
This lesson will cover the techniques of finding
long term employment.

3. Gaining Employment
 Introduction
This topic supports this objective:
 Plan and execute job search techniques.
Learn a new skill. Learning something new can make you feel better
about yourself in addition to making you more marketable. Since this is a
time when you may not have a lot of extra money to spare, look for free
online courses and low cost courses available through continuing
education in your community.

4. Gaining Employment
 Check your understanding
Read the question below and take a moment to think about the question and answer it
the best way possible.
Question: As you search for work, are you taking into consideration the skills that you
possess for the position that you want or are you looking for jobs that pay a lot? If you
don’t have the skills that will allow you to be paid that salary, what course of action
should you take?
Compare your answer to that of your instructor’s on the next page.

5. What you should know while searching for employment
Review:
 This topic supported this objective
 Plan and execute job search techniques.
 Answer: It’s natural to want jobs that pays a high salary, even when you
don’t have the necessary skills or education. However, if you can’t get this
kind of job, then you should settle for the job that you qualify for, then,
enroll in courses that will give you the necessary skills so you can
eventually be prepared for that job that pays a high salary.

6. Overview
Introduction
Check your Understanding
Review

7. Sustaining Long Term Employment
Overview
 In the last lesson you went through the process of job search and the
necessary skills required to land the job of your dreams.
 In this lesson, you will engage in steps to take in keeping a job for the long
term.

8. Sustaining Long Term Employment
Introduction
This topic supports this objective:
 Sustaining Long term employment
Below is an abstract of an article on sustaining employment. The full article can be found at
http://rsw.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/12/15/1049731514562285.abstract
Objective: People who are homeless experience many barriers that affect their ability to gain and sustain work.
In this study, we investigate whether personal job coaching support contributes toward employment success.
Methods: The short- and long-term employment outcomes of 2,480 clients participating in a labor market
program were analyzed. Results: Clients being supported by a job coach have significantly higher chances of
gaining employment than those not being supported. This holds particularly true for the youngest age-group.
Furthermore, results also indicate that job coaching improves clients’ chances of successfully sustaining
employment. Conclusions: Personal approaches and individual coaching seem to be promising strategies in
social work practice and specifically in return to work programs for people who have experienced
homelessness.

9. Sustaining Long Term Employment
 Check your Understanding
Read the question below and take a moment to think about the question and answer it
the best way possible.
 Question
As a recovering homeless person/family trying to reenter the workforce after
3 years of being absent from the workforce, what new skills do you think you
will need in order to compete with other job seekers?

10. Sustaining Long Term Employment
Review
 This topic supported this objective:
 Sustaining long term employment
Answer: After being away for such a long time, it’s always a good idea to
research your field to find out what new skills are required, so you can quickly
learn those skills so you can be employable.