Fourteen students graduate as first class from workforce readiness program
Justine Coleman | Editorial Intern
Fifteen weeks after joining the AmeriHealth Caritas office and working toward a hospitality certificate, 14 Black American students became the workplace readiness program’s first graduates.
AmeriHealth Caritas, a health care private insurer that manages state Medicaid, hosted the Pathways to Work program along with the Young Women’s Christian Academy to provide working opportunities for financially struggling people at risk of homelessness, according to Karen Dale, the market president and CEO of AmeriHealth.
Three students from the program received jobs at AmeriHealth as care connectors who select intervention programs to help at-risk members. They will earn roughly $40,000 per year. Two two other graduates were hired at the George Washington University Hospital and Unity Health Care. Other graduates have more interviews scheduled, including with AmeriHealth, according to Sonya Anderson, AmeriHealth’s senior human resources business partner.
“I think the accomplishments and the growth that I’ve seen in 15 weeks—that’s amazing,” Anderson said in an interview.
The program leaders singled out 21-year-old graduate Titiana Kelly—who will work at AmeriHealth as a care connector specializing in rapid response—for her persistence making repeated phone calls and having many conversations to ensure she was admitted to the program.
“I was just so tired from going from job to job, and I knew this was an amazing opportunity for me,” Kelly said in an interview. “Like, I just couldn’t give up on it and miss out on the opportunity that I had.”
Another graduate, 24-year-old Diamond Bedney got a job as a care connector specializing in helping pregnant women. She said she joined the program to get a second chance to obtain employment.
“I’m proud of myself more than maybe I ever was,” said Bedney, who is a single mom. “This has not rebuilt me but touched up a lot of my skills that I didn’t know I had.”
Dale, the AmeriHealth market president and CEO, said she created the work readiness program to help find solutions for family homelessness and home insecurity within the District. After developing the program in December, she and AmeriHealth immediately started putting it together bringing in participants in January.
“In our city, there’s a lot of opportunity. However those with access to it are not always the people who need it most,” Dale said.
In the program, the participants spent three days a week working in different departments at the AmeriHealth office and attending workshops on work-life balance, financial literacy and computer skills, according to Dale.
The students traveled to the YWCA the other two days, where they took hospitality courses and used a training lab for improving skills such as typing. The program focused on certifying participants in hospitality because of the high number of entry-level jobs offered in a tourist-centered city like D.C., Dale said.
Program leaders expect to have another Pathways to Work class begin in September and hope to involve more community partners in the program.
“We are a small piece of giving them a stepping stone to an economic future,” Dale said. “And that to me is huge, not only for them, but for their children and their extended families.”
