Working Senior Class / Program puts seniors back in work force
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No comments [ Add Comment ]By Loretta Park
Standard-Examiner Staff
KAYSVILLE -- A year ago, Susana Cifuentes lost her job as an assistant in a Roy laboratory.
The 65-year-old Layton woman had hoped she would find a job, but knew her lack of English skills and her age were major hurdles.
Now, Cifuentes attends an English-as-a-second-language class at the Davis Applied Technology College and works as a classroom aide five hours a day, four days a week.
"My daughter told me about this program necessary for older people," said Cifuentes, who came to the U.S. 20 years ago from Argentina and has lived in Utah for the past 11 years. In four months, she hopes to become a U.S. citizen.
Cifuentes enrolled in the program three months ago after her daughter read an article in El Estandar, a newspaper produced by the Standard-Examiner for Spanish-speaking readers. The article was about the Senior Community Services Employment Program.
SCSEP is under Title V of the Older Americans Act of 1965.
Cifuentes, like 385 other seniors in Utah, is paid minimum wage for the training she is receiving and the work she does.
The program is available in all 29 counties of the state. The state runs 25 percent of the program, which covers 79 slots. The national grantee, Easter Seals, covers the rest of the program, filling 306 slots, said Darren Hotton, the SCSEP program manager with the Division of Aging.
Davis, Weber, Morgan and Salt Lake counties areunder the state, he said. The program is for low-income residents who are 55 and older who need employment skills. Generally, it is homemakers or displaced employees who do not have any skills who enroll in the program.
Those people who do not qualify can go to Workforce Services and get similar training and job placement, Hotton said. For Cifuentes, her English has improved enough that she is communicating with her neighbors, at the mall and in grocery stores.
"It is a liberty to be able to talk in English," she said.
Her daughter, Ahanhi Dare, said she is proud of her mother.
"Her English is a lot better," Dare said.
When Cifuentes is not studying or participating in the classroom, she is making copies, helping other students find books and doing the filing.
She will learn computer skills in another month or two, said Ron Burris, Davis County Health Department's Senior Employment Program manager.
"We don't want to overwhelm her right now," Burris said.
Burris said currently Davis County has three people, including Cifuentes, in the program. He had four, but then the minimum wage increased, so when the fourth person went off the program he did not fill the slot.
In Weber County, six people are on the program; in Morgan County there is one, said JoAnn Brown, coordinator for Weber/Morgan County Title V program.
The person in Morgan is 93 years old and works in the Morgan senior center, Brown said. Brown has three people in their 70s learning different skills at several agencies.
Cifuentes is hoping that, once she has improved her English and has some computer skills under her belt, she will be able to work with children.
She has a bachelor's degree in early childhood education from a university in Peru.
"Susana (Cifuentes) should not have a hard time getting a job," Burris said. "She's intelligent and has a degree."
