Ohio Valley Goodwill Takes a Unique Approach to Putting People to Work

L to R: Kaitie Stretch and Katie Towns, Goodwill Placement Team Members.

Katie and Kaitie, one of Ohio Valley Goodwill Employment Services teams”¦Together they help put people to work! Ohio Valley Goodwill has a pretty unique approach to helping people find jobs and we thought it would be interesting to introduce one of our Employment teams, Katie and Kaitie and explain a little about how they work. Katie Towns is a Placement Case Manager and Kaitie Stretch is a Placement Specialist and together they put all of their combined resources into helping people find jobs in the community. As a Placement Specialist, Kaitie Stretch is the Marketing end of the team. She works directly with the employer to develop the prospective position based on what the individual wants and literally, ” markets” the individual and the benefits of hiring them to the employer. She will then provide on-going coordination of the case management aspects of the needed supports to ensure that the individual maintains employment successfully. As a Placement Case Manager, Katie Towns works directly with the job applicant in helping them to develop their job resume, practice for the interview, provide transportation and support as needed, and also, provide tips that might help the individual to be successful their obtaining the job. ” This unique approach to job placement has really enabled us to help our job-seekers to find the positions that they really want and also to meet the employer’s expectations,” said Katie Towns. ” One of our recent stories about how well this team approach works involves a gentleman that really wanted a position with US Bank but had pretty firm ideas about the hours he wanted to work and the supports that he would need in such a position. He was convinced that he would never be able to get the job he wanted, but in working together, we were able to make that happen,” said Katie Towns. Ohio Valley Goodwill is proud of the work of Katie and Kaitie and the entire Goodwill Placement team as they work hard to help people achieve personal success. To find out more about the benefits of working with Goodwill, please visit www.goodwillemploymentservices.com or call Marty Caffrey, Employment Services Manager at 771-4800, ext. 6239.