DISPLACED HOMEMAKERS: BUILDING THE BRIDGE TO EDUCATION AND EMPLOYMENT

The burgeoning number of displaced homemakers presents community colleges with a contemporary
issue in which they can play a significant role.

— In 1978, 14.3 million women were divorced or separated.

— The number of divorces tripled between 1968 and 1981.

— 10.3 million families had as their principal support women who were divorced, separated, widowed, or
never married.

— One-third of today’s generation of children are likely to live in homes headed by women who are
receiving welfare benefits.

— The average age at which women are widowed in the United States is 56, a full nine years before they
would be eligible to receive social security.

The typical displaced homemaker suffers from low self-esteem, insufficient education or training to be
employable, and a myriad of survival issues to be solved in communities with limited resources. The
national philosophy of community colleges responding to community needs places community colleges in a
primary role to assist displaced homemakers from dependency to economic independence through their
educational training programs and resources.

Skagit Valley College has been providing services for disadvantaged and single parents for 12 years. For
the last four and a half years, the college has provided services specifically for displaced homemakers and is
one of more than 400 in the nation which provides counseling, career and life planning classes, workshops,
training, and job placement assistance to the displaced homemaker population.

The Skagit Valley College program offers the following services:

1. Nine career and life planning classes annually which include 50 hours of structured coursework
focusing on transferable skills, the world of work, career decisions, and job search skills.

For widows, transitional classes which focus on career and life planning, grief, loss, and legal issues.

Individual career counseling, educational advising, and job placement assistance.

Weekly support groups focusing on transition from homemaker to training or employment.

Workshops on self-esteem, employment opportunities, assertiveness, time management, and special

interest issues.

Because of limited employment opportunities in remote rural areas, the program provided a special course
to aid displaced homemakers in creating their own employment through a home-based business. The course
included the pros and cons of business, types of businesses, licenses and permits, record-keeping, marketing
strategies, business planning, and taxes.

The program serves approximately 400 displaced homemakers annually with a professional staff of one
and a half individuals. The breadth of our services is made possible with the aid of student volunteers and
interns (from two-year and four-year colleges and graduate programs), many of whom are former displaced
homemakers themselves. Seventy percent of those participating in the program enter educational programs
after completing the intensive career assessments component with well-defined career goals.

Displaced homemakers are not often aware of community college resources; therefore, a program must
conduct extensive outreach activities such as media campaigns, presentations to community organizations
and agencies, wide dissemination of brochures and flyers, reader board announcements, and door-to-door
contacts. Previous participants and agency personnel often refer new displaced homemakers to the program
due to the quality of the program services and the established results achieved by the participants upon
completion of the program—an 89% successful placement.

Gm

Sharon Satran, Director of Women’s Programs
Skagit Valley Community College

For further information, contact the author at Skagit Valley Community College, 2405 E. College Way,
Mount Vernon, WA 98273.

 

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
January 23, 1987, Vol. IX, No. 1

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS Is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of
Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, (512)471-7545. Subscriptions are available to nonconsortlum members for $35 per year. Funding In
part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring
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© The University of Texas at Austin, 1987
Further duplication Is permitted only by MEMBER institutions for their own personnel. ISSN 0199-106