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Working families are key to the success of Vermont’s manufacturers. That’s why we offer no cost training to eligible parents of young children.
The path to finding a good career can be difficult, especially if you have kids. As one student, Orin, recently shared, “Being a young parent makes it really hard to find time and extra money to further my education.”
To make it easier for working parents like Orin to access training and find good paying careers in
critical industries, Continuing Education & Workforce Development at Vermont Tech launched the
Strengthening Working Families Initiative (SWFI). Funded by the US Department of Labor, SWFI is part of a national effort to support working families.
Victoria Browning felt trapped.
To support her two young children, she worked full time caring for elderly people, earning $14 an hour. Every week was a struggle.
So she enrolled at Concorde Career College Aurora Campus to get a shot at a better-paying job. Instead, she ended up with thousands of dollars in student debt and a job that paid the same as before.
Several years later, she tried again at the Community College of Aurora. That time, she did land a job with higher pay. But to graduate, she had to figure out how to negotiate inconvenient schedules and overcome barriers that derail many working students.