Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services - Employment Services

Employment Services

Catholic Charities Immigration and Refugee Services has provided a wide range of services to refugees, legal immigrants and individuals with limited English proficiency residing in the Diocese of Harrisburg since 1975. The goals of the program are to assist in teaching individuals to become economically, linguistically and socially self-sufficient in their new home.

Immigration and Refugee Services has been providing refugee employment placement services for over 20 years. Through its long history, the employment services program has developed collaborative relationships with a large number of diverse area employers. Refugees participating in job readiness and development activities have been extremely successful in locating stable employment, particularly in the service industry.

GAIN Program

The goal of the GAIN (Greater Access to Independence for Newcomers) initiative is to assist newcomers in accessing jobs which utilize skills and training they bring with them from their countries of origin. GAIN also enables pursuit of vocational goals and job upgrades for refugees and asylum seekers working in fields that are new to them.
This region has seen a substantial growth in its refugee and other foreign-born populations over the past ten years and the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement awarded a “targeted assistance” grant to the state of Pennsylvania to provide employment assistance to refugees here in Central Pennsylvania. Federal targeted assistance grants are awarded based on special needs resulting from resettlement of refugees into a region.
The GAIN project draws upon five key employment strategies which engage area employers and training facilities to meet the needs of refugees in four targeted counties: 1) an innovative job coaching program using both staff and volunteer resources; 2) customized on-the-job training designed by participating employers for refugee workers; 3) technical school based, short-term training to prepare eligible refugees for available employment opportunities; 4) customized skills credentialing services for occupations needed in the region; 5) customized VESL classes both on and off the job to insure that newcomers have adequate vocational language skills.
Refugees from Nepal,Cuba, Bosnia, Ukraine, Russia and a number of African countries have been helped to attain greater self-sufficiency through services this project offers. Participants in the GAIN project include doctors, nurses, engineers, accountants, business administrators as well as a variety of other professionals. Job upgrades for general laborers have also been facilitated.
Catholic Charities has been joined by partners in the Refugee Services Coalition of Central PA (RSCCP) to implement this new employment enhancement project. Participating partners include: Church World Service of Lancaster, Lutheran Children and Family Services, Immigration and Refugee Services of Catholic Charities, International Service Center, and PRIME/ECR. Area employers and training facilities also took part in the planning process that led to the award of this grant.