City of Bloomington, Indiana VIDEO UPDATES with Mayor Hamilton, 23 Dec 2022

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From YouTube: Video Update: Centerstone Job Placement Partnership with Parks and Recreation

Description

In this week's video update, Mayor John Hamilton and Parks and Recreation Director Paula McDevitt discuss the City's employment placement partnership with Centerstone.

First piloted in 2017, the partnership focused on the downtown area, including Seminary Park, Peoples Park, Building Trades Park, and Rev. Ernest D. Butler Park. The partnership now covers four main areas: park maintenance, Switchyard Park, landscaping, and Cascades Golf Course.

The program has been highly successful, and more than 70 Centerstone clients have participated since its beginning. Four past participants have since become City of Bloomington employees in the Parks department. Every participant earns a living wage and training and is provided the necessary tools to be successful.

Tune in next week when Mayor Hamilton and Department of Public Works Director Adam Wason discuss a similar partnership with Centerstone and the Brighten B-town initiative.

Today's video transcript is available online at https://bton.in/5ZGvB. If you have questions about the Parks and Recreation partnership with Centerstone, contact Paula McDevitt at mcdevitp@bloomington.in.gov.

Learn more about Centerstone at centerstone.org.

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Hamilton here in Bloomington Indiana, thanks for being with us again and today we're with Paula McDevitt the director of our award-winning Parks and Recreation Department. Thank you Paula for being here.

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We are talking today about Partnerships generally, but more specifically about a partnership that you've been doing for several years with Centerstone and it's a really exciting and powerful thing. So maybe you can just tell us what why do you do Partnerships and then we'll get into this one? Absolutely.

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The Parks and Recreation Department have been doing formal Partnerships for a couple decades.

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They're really useful because it gives us the opportunity to come to the table with the potential Community partner to put the resources that we have available on the table. What does a community partner have as resources.

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Then the community benefits, because nine times out of ten, we come out with the partnership agreement. That is either a program or in this case a service and Employment.

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Program, like schools, you partner with, and businesses and all, but this one was with Centerstone mental health provider.

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Absolutely very first partnership with Centerstone.

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Mental health provider um working with the population that oftentimes uh has many challenges in life and uh seeing that they were challenged, we had some needs.

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Yeah we needed.

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Seven years ago,.

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Seven years ago, so they provide mental health services. So we have people in our community who are dealing with mental health issues. We do, as you said, we often see that pressure downtown or other places. So what did you do? What's the partnership do wow.

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Very exciting partnership that I actually uh found out about from Boulder Colorado, okay.

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Piloted this and I was at a conference and the idea and the wheels started turning so upon return, I pulled together, Our Community, Partners and Center Stone was one of the first people that I called in the parks department at that time, and today we have a lot of outside work. Yeah.

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Back in 2016.

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We were being very challenged with some of our downtown parks and along Kirkwood.

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Just basic maintenance and.

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And that so that was that was the our issue. um Center Stone runs a very successful Employment Program, okay,.

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So they work with clients, teach them job basic job skills, interviewing skills and at, and we essentially had the jobs and the.

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And the the equipment and the locations and they had the clients that were looking for work so.

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I remember we talked about this Paul and we're going to figure we're going to talk in a moment about how it started and how big it got, but we in a way this is some of these people we're working with and employing now were ones experiencing. We've seen them on the street, experiencing mental illness and living downtown or different ways. So it was really working with our community to help get them jobs. So how so we've hired people and they do outside work, helping what clean up Parks.

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Well, when we first started, we started very small and a pilot.

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One of um the key components to it, because in Parks we're really good about knowing how to maintain parks and trails and that. But as far as working with people who are struggling with real life problems and that or overcoming addiction and.

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That's not our area of expertise, so that was a real key part of the conversation right from the very beginning with Centerstone. So the pilot project started with one crew in park, maintenance.

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How big is a crew between.

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4 is Centerstone, also part of the partnership, had a supervisor for that crew.

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That came with.

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It that came with it so that when the crew arrived on location at one of our Parks, our staff were there with the tools necessary right.

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Basic job training, what it involved, but essentially the Centerstone supervisor, worked right along with the crew members and did the work as well, but they were there to manage any challenges.

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That came up so somebody.

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Couldn't make it to work or there's, you know, life happened, yeah, um it was in the hands of the professionals and that's the Centerstone crew. So.

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How'd it work how's it working and what what are is it now and has it changed? Has it helped us and has it helped them well.

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You know the very first time we went out and visited a crew on Sunday afternoon in people's Park, and they were just so happy to be there and to be contributing and to feel valued.

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And that was something that didn't find its way in wording in.

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Our partnership agreement, so that was that that.

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Side benefit so after that summer, of course, big parks department. We have a lot of needs, so the program has grown over the past couple years. We now have a landscaping crew that.

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In our general, we do landscaping all over the city and.

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In our Parks beautifully.

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Thank you. um We have a crew that works out at the golf course. So again, okay, a lot of use out there.

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And then we also have a crew that we started in 2020 at switch yard, Park, okay,.

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They help us during the peak summer months as Park attendants. They monitor the restrooms, they keep them clean for our visitors um and sometimes they've been maybe the first person on site if somebody is in need, has.

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An accident and.

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They can alert our full-time staff so again just working real cooperatively and really well with our staff. Three.

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Crews now three projects we're.

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Up to four locations so.

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Park maintenance, Courtyard.

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Park landscaping and Golf.

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Course great great so Paula how many people have been involved in this? Do you know through the years now you have an idea. You.

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Can share with us about 70 . wow.

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Very popular program that they always have more applications than we have spots for. Oh.

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That's that's rewarding! That's a lot of people that have gone through this, helping them and US congratulations, so they make decent wages and do you know the impact on some of the employees and any good stories out of that.

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Absolutely we are very proud that we pay living wage as we.

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Pay all of our seasonal employees.

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And so to be able to extend that on that's just a wonderful thing um and then success stories. There have been a few. We have a couple of the Centerstone crew that we have actually hired on our seasonal employee through moving.

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From the project with Centerstone to just become regular direct employees for three or four of those four today.

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Which is really great and I also understand from Centerstone that many people that have gone through the program have found homes and a place to live and have gone on to other jobs. In fact, so it just has a whole lot of I think outside positive outcomes. That again, when we started the conversation six years ago, we were very centered on the work that needed to get.

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Done yeah, but the.

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Human side of this story and the partnership is really really rewarding for all involved.

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And they've joined the Parks family, I guess some of them, so so um look I I.

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We could talk about this a long time, I know, but I'm really proud of what parks has done, connecting challenging situations, often with downtown parks and others with people who sometimes can be sources of friction, but we turn them with this partnership into employees and building their dignity and their respect and employment opportunities and housing opportunities for for many folks, we'll have more information if you want about this program, but thank you for what you do and thank all you and your colleagues for working with Centerstone.

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We thank them for helping make this community stronger, better, looking and also a thriving place for more people.

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