Personal Experience and an MSW Education Inform Program in East Harlem
New York City's East Harlem, a community with more than its share of social problems including poverty and substance abuse, is also home to a successful program that helps men and women learn fundamental work skills, provides job placement, and long term support designed to help program graduates maintain stability.
STIRVE is a program with a big heart. Tucked away in a tenement basement, STRIVE'S dedicated staff are working hard to train young men and women the basics about how to obtain and retain jobs. STRIVE teaches clients how to present themselves in the workplace, including how to dress, speak, and work with others.
Attaining these goals is challenging because STRIVE clients have little, if any, experience with economic self-sufficiency - at least not by legal means. They are primarily young adults, many of who have been in prison and who have been addicted to drugs. Some of them come from families that are 2nd generation welfare recipients. For many clients, STRIVE is their first opportunity to learn the skills that enable them to achieve and maintain employment.
Co-founder, President and CEO Rob Carmona, MSW, brings a special commitment to his work. Born in East Harlem, Mr. Carmona was caught in a dangerous web of drug addiction and crime, eventually serving time in prison.
In 1976, Mr. Carmona was convicted of armed robbery but instead of being sent to jail, a judge sent him to Daytop Village, a residential drug rehabilitation program.
Daytop Village helped him turn his life around and he subsequently completed a B.A. program and then an M.S.W. program at Columbia Univeristy.
Mr. Carmona is committed to working with the young men and women of his community and to empower them to achieve self-sufficiency. For Mr. Carmona, focusing on employment is a powerful method of helping people to learn responsibility and to improve self-esteem.
Mr. Carmona's work is informed by his social work training. He credits his MSW education with having given him the skills to be a better manager and to motivate and train his staff to work more effectively with clients. Being a social worker, Mr. Carmona says, taught him to understand his employees within a holistic perspective that takes into account their personality as well as their strengths and weaknesses. This is key to providing supervision and to helping staff to function at their highest level.
In addition to teaching job readiness skills, STRIVE offers gender specific programs that help women address self-esteem and confidence. Counseling also may focus on childcare, substance abuse and domestic violence or other psychological issues. Men are provided the opportunity to address the impact of incarceration, addiction, relationships, parenting, and homelessness.
STRIVE's model has proven to be so effective that it has been replicated throughout the United States as well as internationally.
STRIVE could be described as therapy with an attitude because it utilizes the direct confrontation techniques similar to the treatment style that was developed in drug rehabilitation programs like Daytop Village and Phoenix House. While this approach may not be right for everyone, for Rob Carmona and his clients, facing yourself in the mirror, taking personal responsibility, and changing your attitude is the recipe for success.