Featured Member


Rob Franciose, Director
First Jobs Academy
Falmouth, Maine

Year program began: 2004
Program sponsor: The Annie E. Casey Foundation and Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
Jobseekers placed last year: 28

First Jobs Academy is a youth staffing initiative that provides entry-level job opportunities for youth in the foster care system while meeting employers’ needs to augment their workforce during Maine’s summer tourist season. Now in its fifth year, First Jobs has evolved from an on-site coaching and temp-to-hire model to an Academy approach that delivers pre-employment training to both its youth workers and front-line supervisors at customer businesses. Investing equally in both groups’ development produces successful first job experiences for youth, and enhanced capacity for frontline business managers to improve their retention of all entry-level employees.

We spoke with member Rob Franciose to learn more about this alternative staffing strategy.

How did you get into the alternative staffing business?

In 1993, I founded an employment agency, Employment Trust, Inc. (ETI) in Portland, Maine to help people with disabilities, welfare recipients, new Americans and other disadvantaged individuals achieve employment success. Our staffing division, called “managed work services,” filled entry-level jobs we controlled at eight different companies, where we used on-site job coaches to manage and support individuals while they built their workplace skills. “Managed” workers would then transition to an employer’s direct payroll, some within the same company but most hired by other companies. ETI also made direct competitive placements and provided workforce development consulting and technical assistance nationally, helping to create Managed Work Services of New York and Managed Work Services of St. Louis.

I conceived the idea for First Jobs while serving on the advisory committee for the School-to-Career Partnership which, at the time, was a national Annie E. Casey Foundation initiative. First Jobs launched in the summer of 2004 as a pilot project sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the Academy began in 2008.

What jobseeker population does First Jobs Academy serve?

We serve youth in foster care, ranging in age from 15 to 21. “Youth in care” are young people who have been removed from their birth families by the state. Many of them continue to experience extreme disruptions in residence, moving among group homes, foster homes, and sometimes juvenile detention facilities. They often have learning and other disabilities, and most have never held a job. In previous years we’ve included youth both in and out of school. This year we’re targeting in-school youth only.

How does the Academy model work?

Our original model was a temporary staffing and temp-to-hire arrangement using on-site job coaches. Youth employees remained on First Jobs’ payroll and we billed client companies the entry-level wage plus a 38% mark-up.

In the Academy model, employers directly hire our youth for the summer, and we train staff supervisors in lieu of using job coaches. The curriculum for supervisors covers learning styles, asset-based training, adolescent development, trauma and loss, substance abuse in the workplace, diversity, and generations in the workplace. The training totals 20 hours and is delivered over 4 weeks as a certificate program at the University of Southern Maine (USM). Importantly, the training is delivered at no cost by a range of professionals – some from the university and others from community organizations that serve kids – who share this responsibility. Managers also attend a 2-hour Youth, Family and Agencies Forum we organize to help them understand the families’ role and the array and interplay of various service agencies.

Youth similarly receive 25 hours of paid training over a 4-week period, and know from the start that a specific job is awaiting them. The first 2 weeks are classroom only and the second 2 weeks combine classroom and on-the-job training. Participating employers serve as instructors and the curriculum focuses on three areas: Dollars and Sense (financial literacy), Work Wise (job readiness and soft skills), and Healthy ME (health, hygiene and stress management). Like the supervisors, our youth participants earn a certificate from the Muskie School of Public Service at USM.

After completing the training, the youth work 15 to 35 hours per week for 11 weeks and earn $8 to $11 per hour. The youth are also eligible to participate in the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative, a national program which provides them with financial education, a debit account and a matched savings account. Funds that the youth save can be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $1,000 by the Jim Casey Initiative. Although the jobs are seasonal, all of last year’s kids were offered continued employment beyond the summer.

What is your role in managing the program?

I’m a staff of one and wear many hats over the course of the year. On the employer side, I do the business development and relationship management to cultivate employers’ commitment to the program, understand their job requirements, help them identify candidates for supervisor training, coordinate their participation in the youth training, and help them evaluate their experience and hopefully expand their involvement in the future. On the youth side, I screen and select applicants by meeting with them and their families in their homes; conduct vocational assessments; review their written applications; interview them and make job matches. During the summer, I serve as a roving advisor to the kids and their supervisors at all the job sites. I also work with the Muskie School to help facilitate their program evaluation and improve the training curriculum.

How are participants referred to your program?

Twenty-one child-serving organizations in southern Maine refer youth candidates. This year we’ve had 52 applicants for 35 jobs.

What types of support services have you found to be most critical to the youth workers’ success?

Pre-employment training for both the youth and their supervisors is the most important element in laying the groundwork for their success. It gives the youth a certain level of comfort when they start the job and a frame of reference for their experiences on-the-job. Among other things, we help them understand that one mistake is not the end of the world.

What types of employers do you serve?

Hannaford Brothers, an east coast supermarket chain owned by Delhaize America, Inc. is our anchor business partner and has been with us from the start. In fact, we hope to expand the program to three Hannaford stores in Lowell, Massachusetts this coming summer and are excited about this new opportunity. We also place youth with a variety of other employers in Maine, including Cabela’s (outdoor clothing and equipment retailer), UNUM Insurance, University of Southern Maine, Paradigm Windows and the City of Portland.

How are the Academy services funded?

The Annie E. Casey Foundation has been our signature funder, providing funding through the Foundation’s Youth in Transition portfolio.  We also generated revenue from employers during the program’s first three years. The Maine Division of Casey Family Services has been a critical partner, providing us with meeting space and serving as a youth referring agency. A grant from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in year three helped us to broaden our business base and extend services to out-of-school youth and youth in the criminal justice system.

What are the biggest challenges of operating this staffing service program?

As with all alternative staffing agencies, I guess, it’s getting the businesses on board … spending the time necessary to understand their needs and figure out their developmental level. My approach is to start small, meet them where they are, and give them the right kid so they’re willing to grow with us in the future.

What about First Jobs Academy makes you most proud?

Over time, we’ve created a synergistic “whole” out of very disparate parts – employer customers, academic partners, social service agencies, youth and their families – who inspire and learn from each other, give their all, and share a deep commitment to everyone’s success. It’s very satisfying to be part of this.

Please, briefly share a success story about one of your workers.

Charity, a teen with learning disabilities who’s been in foster care since the age of 6 months, completed our training last summer and began work in a front-end customer service position at Hannaford’s, bagging groceries, collecting carts and so on. Her case worker told me Charity aspired to be a cashier, and asked me to pursue this on Charity’s behalf. I suggested that Charity could speak for herself, and with our encouragement, Charity approached her supervisor directly. As a result, the store trained and promoted her, and kept her on at the end of the summer.

Charity has a deep love of horses, going back to her therapeutic riding experiences at a young age. During her summer of cashiering, she saved $1,000, and with the dollar-for-dollar match from Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative bought a $2,000 (pink and black!) saddle. She also has taken a leadership role, helping to create this year’s training curriculum and serving as the youth representative for our peer training. Charity is college-bound and has a very bright future.

What are First Jobs’ main goals for the future?

I would really like to take what we’ve learned and apply it to other disconnected youth. So much research confirms that quality early employment and consistent attachment to the workforce are strong predictors of an individual’s future success in life.

What advice would you offer to someone considering alternative staffing as a strategy to serve youth?

Take time to get to know all of the players – the diverse population of at-risk youth, their families, the local network of providers – and understand the lay of the land. This applies to employers, too, of course. Take time to understand their business needs and be willing to meet them where they are.

Also, I don’t think it’s realistic to start with an Academy approach. We had to earn the confidence of our employer partners before they were willing to buy in to this idea. I suggest starting as we did, with fee-for-service staffing, and converting to the Academy model over time.

For more information about First Jobs Academy, contact Rob Franciose at Rfranciose@aol.com