Blue Ridge Job Corps Center Celebrates Anniversary, Number One Status

By Jamie M. Barnes

Mayor Helms congratulates Blue Ridge Job Corps.

Blue Ridge Job Corps Center got its start in 1967 as part of Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty.  In 1964, President Johnson submitted the Economic Opportunity Act to Congress as “a milestone in our one-hundred eighty year search for a better life for our people.”  The act established Job Corps and other related programs to create opportunities for nearly half a million young people.  Since its inception, the Job Corps program has grown from one center, opened in 1965 in Catoctin Mountain Park, Maryland to 123 centers in the U.S. and Puerto Rico today.

Opened on the campus of the Marion Junior Women’s College after the Department of Labor purchased the building in 1967, the Blue Ridge Job Corps Center has always been a female only campus.  Initially, all Job Corps Centers were segregated according to gender, which was not unusual in the social climate of the early 1960s 1.  Over time, most of the female-only campuses were closed, with co-educational facilities opening in other locations.  Today only two all-female Job Corps Centers remain.  The Blue Ridge center has not made the transition to co-educational due to facility issues. 

The training available to the women in the early Job Corps centers included a wide range of options, such as health and education, industrial sewing, child care, food and household service, and business / clerical even though Johnson’s original proposal did not include women in Job Corps.  This limitation was based on the idea that “returns on money invested in training girls would be short-lived, because they would soon marry and assume family responsibilities. 2, 3”  Congresswoman Edith Greene did not believe this and fought to ensure that women could also receive the benefits of Job Corps.  Because of the Congresswoman’s hard work and insistence that “deficiently educated women brought up in deprived homes” tend to “raise children who are likely to remain in poverty, 4” Congress opened Job Corps to women in 1965.

Since 2007, the career technical curriculum at Blue Ridge is focused on high-growth health field occupations: certified nursing assistant, licensed practical nurse, medical office support, and medical assistant (certified phlebotomist and EKG technician).  With vast improvements in health care over the last half-century, the U.S. population is living longer and requiring more health services.  Additionally, the perpetual modernization of health care practices brings new and more complex medical technologies requiring specialized support staff, technicians, and practitioners.  While the career technical curriculum provides a range of health care support career options, the Advanced Career Training program provides eligible Job Corps students with a higher level of career training by co-enrollment in a local college 5.  The available Advanced Career Training medical fields include dental hygienist, licensed practical nurse, physical therapist assistant, radiography, and registered nurse; all providing much needed services for our rapidly aging population.  The co-enrollment program also offers training in police science, information systems technology, education, and human services fields.

By graduation Blue Ridge Job Corps students are well-trained, confident and fully prepared to begin their career activities, no matter what curriculum they chose to pursue.  With ample job readiness and life skills training throughout their stay on-center, students are prepared for the challenges they will face as they begin new lives.  To ease the transition, Blue Ridge students are provided with plenty of support during their move from the center to self-sufficiency.  It is this combination of solid foundational training, career preparation, and support after separation from the program that makes Blue Ridge number one in the nation.  Holding on to that top rating is no small task.  All 122 6 of the currently operating Job Corps Centers nationwide are evaluated on a number of factors monthly, using a “report card” type system.

The center report cards measure performance-based successes in areas such as enrollment and graduation, literacy and numeracy gains, and how many students get and retain jobs.  The measurements record the achieved percentage of target goals set for each center by the Department of Labor.  With several centers regularly scoring above 100% of goal, competition is fierce.  Back in 1997, when ResCare took over the operation of the Blue Ridge center, it was ranked as number 105 of 109 centers.  Over the years, the Blue Ridge team has made many innovative changes, met operational challenges head-on, and modified its curriculum to increase student success.  Those improvements have contributed to the center’s climb to the top and its positive impact on the community.

October’s anniversary celebration at Blue Ridge was a great event.  The center offered plenty of free food and fun to the community, including tours of the center, music and health education.  A popular stop at the celebration was the blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose testing area.  Students spent plenty of time with the celebrants who participated in the health testing, discussing results and ways to promote a healthy lifestyle.  Many special guests spoke at the celebration, offering congratulations to Job Corps and the Blue Ridge center, and words of support for the positive, can-do atmosphere they foster.  Mayor David Helms and Delegate Bill Carrico spoke at the celebration, and praise was offered by representatives of U.S. Senator Jim Webb and Congressman Rick Boucher, who were unable to personally attend the celebration.  Community Relations Committee member Delores Boehm thanked the center and students for contributing to the community, and congratulated Center Director Gary Tickles on the center’s success.

With another monthly Job Corps “report card” coming out soon, Director Tickles is hopeful that his center will remain on top.  One certainty is that the Blue Ridge center will continue to serve the community and its youth in the spirit that President Johnson intended, giving “high priority to helping young Americans who lack skills, who have not completed their education or who cannot complete it because they are too poor…. 7”  Job Corps’ 45-year commitment to empowering our nations’ youth still resonates with the words that introduced it to Congress in 1964: “Because it is right, because it is wise, and because, for the first time in our history, it is possible to conquer poverty…The Act does not merely expand old programs or improve what is already being done…It charts a new course.”