United Training and Employment Center
                                                      (UTEC)

A. UTEC: A Model Approach to Self-Reliance and Economic Empowerment

        The United Training and Employment Center (UTEC) is a 501(c)(3) NonProfit career development, school referral and job placement agency that is staffed by seasoned professional counselors.  UTEC’s Founder and President is Mr. Clayton A. Roberts, U.S. Air Force Retired.  UTEC’s original mission and vision was to provide job skills, training and support for retirees, parolees and those who seem to be inextricably tied to the public benefits system, for various socioeconomic reasons, including not actively seeking gainful employment. This mission has been expanded to include job skills training for senior citizens, which enhances the likelihood that this program can be successfully replicated in other jurisdictions.

UTEC looks forward to the opportunity to introduce its training model to the various Departments of Corrections (Parole & Probation) and Human Services (Social Services), as well as the many Senior Citizens Groups in the Washington metropolitan area. Our plan is to accept referrals of potential students from these organizations to be interviewed, evaluated and sometimes tested by our counselors before being enrolled in a job skills facility.  This process is designed to ensure the best chances for successfully completing the program.

During the enrollment process, each potential student is processed to receive a federal grant to pay his or her full tuition for the classes.  There is never an up-front fee for any student.  With the extensive curriculum offered by our many participating school facilities, UTEC represents a new and improved extension of service toward the future of these municipalities that can readily be applied, internally and externally, either as a core requirement or as a “pilot project” leading to a mandatory stipulation by these Departments.

The UTEC Model augments any Corrections Plan to Rehabilitate Parolees versus Recycling Repeat Offenders

Probationers include adult offenders whom courts place on community supervision generally in lieu of incarceration.

Parolees include those adults conditionally released to community supervision whether by parole board decision or by mandatory conditional release after serving a prison term. They are subject to being returned to jail or prison for rule violations or other offenses.

• At year end 2005, over 4.9 million adult men and women were under Federal, State, or local probation or parole jurisdiction; approximately 4,162,500 on probation and 784,400 on parole.
• The 0.6% growth in the probation and parole population during 2005 -- an increase of 31,626 during the year -- was more than a fifth of the average annual increase of 2.8% since 1995.
• Only forty-five percent (45%) of parole discharges in 2005 successfully completed their term of supervision, unchanged since 1995. Thirty-eight percent (38%) were returned to jail or prison, and 11% absconded.

B.     Department of Corrections:  “Impact-oriented Rehabilitation Plan”

1.          To increase stakeholder participation in the success of the program, a UTEC representative will attend the periodic staff meetings of parole/probation to provide details on the program and answer questions concerning the curriculum so the officers will be equipped with the information necessary to explain the post-release protocol to the prospective students who are pre-qualified as best suited for the program;
2.          To reduce stress and anxiety that often is associated with long periods of incarceration but rarely discussed publicly, within ____ days before an inmate’s scheduled release from prison, a parole officer visits the correctional facility to initiate the roll out of the program by conducting career development evaluations;
3.         Thereafter, UTEC, in collaboration with the schools, will keep the referral sources (or their designee) updated with periodic attendance records, progress reports, program completion dates and job placement status;
4.         Those who might have been repeat offenders will now be trained for gainful employment (i.e., “blended” back into Society); and
5.          Once trained, many juvenile offenders would see legitimate employment as a viable way of life outside of crime.
6.         The above-described program goals and objectives are based on a service model where attendance is mandatory, i.e., a Department of Corrections approved program where “Rehabilitation” is a reality and not a human warehousing system

The Department of Corrections (Parole and Probation), perhaps more than any other agency, deals with the most vulnerable and disenfranchised segment of our community.  It stands to reason that consistent re-evaluation of this “system of service” must be constantly scrutinized (and when appropriate, modified) to maintain the highest degree of educational impact and relevance.  Skill training to qualify for gainful employment, now more than ever, by and through an agency that specializes in jobs skills training and job placement is absolutely imperative to fill this critical need.  UTEC is that agency.