Technology and Career Development Center

Single parents living in the Santa Clarita Valley desire to provide a safe home for their children, secure stable and meaningful work, and find cost effective, high-quality childcare. Unfortunately, this is beyond the reach for many who call Santa Clarita their home. This desire can be especially challenging for those who care for children with special needs, for the parent who has a disability, or for the victim of domestic violence.

Single Mothers Outreach created the Technology and Career Development Center (TCDC) to help single parents build the skills necessary to provide a living wage, with particular emphasis on developing home-based businesses that will flex around parents’ unique challenges. The program will:

·       Assess — Provide assessments to determine strengths and abilities, and assist single parents to identify gaps, set career goals, and chart a course for vocational pathways to build skills necessary to succeed.

 ·      Equip — Provide free access to SMO-initiated classes through instructor-led and self-directed online courses.

·       Monitor — Provide accountability to insure parents meet mutually agreed upon goals and timelines.

·       Mobilize — Help parents find meaningful work:

• Workplace - Serve as single parent’s agent in locating work in the SCV through use of partnerships developed within the business community.
• Home-based entrepreneurship - Provide ongoing training and mentors in small business development and help secure contracts for clients.

·       Advocate — Seek out employment and contract opportunities, both locally and globally.

SMO has over 230 member parents. Based on personal interviews with every parent, we discovered many are in low paying jobs with no advancement opportunities. Fifty-four percent indicate they have been a victim of emotional or physical abuse and, therefore, suffer from low self-esteem. Many have physical or emotional disabilities and have been placed on full-time disability, resulting in income below the federal poverty level. Several have children with special needs preventing the parent from holding a traditional job due to excessive absenteeism, the result of caring for a chronically ill child. The TCDC program arose from the demonstrated need to provide alternative income-earning opportunities to help motivated single parents who desire to move from surviving to thriving in our community. Providing home-based business opportunities solves a systemic problem of childcare and transportation costs that often inhibit single parents from moving forward toward self-sustainability.