Oneonta Job Corps Academy restarts and expands Solo Parent program

Qualifying single parents will have a better chance to succeed with career training, thanks to a program that has returned to the Oneonta Job Corps Academy. The Solo Parent program was reopened at the rural New York state training site, during a special ribbon-cutting ceremony August 29, 2006.

Oneonta is one of only about four Job Corps centers across the country that offers assistance to single parents. The program provides room and board for singer parents and their children, as well as on-site day care.

When the program was discontinued two years earlier, the dorms that had been set aside for the program were kept available so the Solo Parent program could be restarted when another outside daycare provider was found.

Unlike the previous program, the new opportunity is being made available to single fathers as well as single moms. The program will now accommodate up to 32 children.

To participate in the program, the single parents must be ages 16 to 24. Their children can be just six weeks old, up to age five.

(9/1/06)

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