Student Services

Student Services is an integral part of Work Force Development Center. As the WFDC Mission states, our organization exists to serve at-risk and disadvantaged youth, providing them with programs that build job and manufacturing skills. The Work Force Development Center Mission truly begins in the classroom.

Teaching Modules

Classrooms up to 6 weeks of instruction geared to provide a basic understanding and knowledge of different manufacturing areas and functions. Also included is a strong emphasis on the safety aspects within individual manufacturing areas.

Hands-On Skills Training

Students spend approximately three weeks on the floor in each of the following manufacturing areas: Material Control, Assembly, Rivet, Seal, Finish, Quality Assurance and Kitting. Training is provided by a qualified staff of instructors representing more than a century of manufacturing experience, much of it in the aerospace industry.

Career Preparation

This final instructional module, up to two weeks in length, is held just prior to program graduation. This module focuses on resume development, cover letter preparation and job-interview role playing. The training syllabus has been expanded to include ethics, etiquette, aerodynamics and additions to the life skills areas include construction of yearly budgets as well as separate monthly food budgets. Several of the existing modules have been revised to reflect the use on a new data base for tracking work progress and individual time expenditures on each work order.

Education

As part of the vocational training program, students, when not attending the WFDC program, are in their regular school classes. Students, dependent on the particular school, earn between 2 to 4 credits toward their high school diploma. Generally those credits are assigned to math or science. With the addition of a life skills module developed and implemented last year, a number of schools have added an extra credit for completion of that program component. When students begin their work on the manufacturing floor, they also earn an hourly stipend currently equal to the minimum wage. The WFDC vocational training not only allows the acquisition of skills but provides familiarity with traditional work environments and integration of solid work habits and ethics.

For more information call:

John Meaney
Student Services Director
(425) 349-1800 ext. 150
johnmeaney@wfdcenter.org