Women WorkBusiness

Women Work! Hall of Fame

Women Work! is a network of amazing individuals, dedicated to helping women achieve economic self-sufficiency. The Women Work! Hall of Fame recognizes individuals who have made substantial contributions to the mission of Women Work! and to women in transition.

Gilda Nardone

Gilda has directed efforts for displaced homemakers programming in Maine since its inception 25 years ago. In 1978 Gilda was hired to work part time with a budget of $10,000 to provide services to displaced homemakers. Today, the Maine Centers for Women, Work and Community are located in 18 communities, with 34 full-time staff and a budget of $1.6 million. The lives of 20,000 women have been changed through the training and support services provided by the Maine Centers.

 

Gilda applied her leadership and organizational development skills at the national level serving nine years on the Women Work! Governing Board. During her tenure as President, Gilda guided the organization through a comprehensive process that culminated in the changing of the name to Women Work! Her participatory style of leadership and deep respect for and trust in the process ensured a positive outcome and support for the organization’s growth.

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Resources for Individuals and Women in Transition

Work, Money & Life Tip Sheets:
Practical information to help you in all areas – financial aid, credit card debt, child support, starting a business, plus much more! Recently updated and expanded. To access them for free, click here.

2005 Tax Credits for Individuals and Parents:
Learn how you can get money back at tax time — even if you didn’t owe any taxes!
Find out more…

Work Your Image!:
Advice for competing in today’s job market! Download a free copy of the Work Your Image! Tip Sheet and the new Family Guide Tip Sheet, “How to Talk with Your Kids About the Importance of Appearance on the Job”. This new resource provides valuable suggestions for talking with young people who are entering the workforce for after-school jobs, internships, summer jobs or full-time employment.
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Tools for the Informed Service Provider or Trainer

Get the tools to move women into IT!Getting IT Across! A Counselor’s Guide for Recruiting Women to Information Technology Careers (GITA) provides program operators with right tools and instruction to recruit women into IT training and employment. This easy-to-use resource turns counselors into IT career experts! Get the IT Basics every counselor needs to know:

  • IT Tips to enhance counseling skills;
  • IT Job Profiles to help clients make informed decisions;
  • IT Interest Assessment, a user-friendly tool for finding the right occupational niche;
  • and more IT resources!

Get the right skills, and get IT across!

Regular price  $59.95              Discounted for members (20% off)  $47.96
Jobs That Pay! A Guide to Nontraditional Occupations for the 21st Century. This guide will help education, training and workforce development program providers educate and motivate women to pursue a career in a broad range of high-wage fields. Jobs That Pay! will help you introduce nontraditional fields to your clients and encourage women to pursue a career with real growth opportunities. And, the job profiles section is a valuable resource to have on-hand for your program participants.

The guide includes:

  • 70 job profiles and descriptions of emerging nontraditional occupations;
  • Information on how to advocate and market nontraditional training to clients, as well as state and local decision-makers; and
  • An overview of federal funding opportunities and other resources for nontraditional training programs.

Regular price  $49.95             Discounted for members (20% off)  $39.96
SAVE EVEN MORE BY BUYING AS A PACKAGE!
Curricula and Resources for Building Stronger Programs
CURRICULA:

On the Rights Track
A Job-Readiness and Workplace Rights CurriculumThis easy-to-use curriculum provides a job-readiness approach to teaching communication, assertiveness, conflict resolution and decision-making skills — the “soft skills” experts say can improve a person’s ability to find and maintain a job.On the Rights Track is broken into four, two-hour workshops with fact sheets, tip sheets, exercises and role-playing activities using work situations to reinforce both the job-readiness skills and workplace rights information being taught. Whether you use the curriculum in its entirety or incorporate separate elements into your current training, you are adding a valuable component to other job readiness training participants receive in your programs.Regular price $104.95                       Discounted for members (20% off) $83.95
CURRICULA:

Superstores, Schools and Sewers
A Job-Readiness Approach to Understanding
the Economy’s Affect on Self-SufficiencySuperstores, Schools and Sewers can be used effectively in combination with job training and career education programs. This innovative curriculum is especially relevant to women entering the workforce or seeking to improve their earning power through training, education and skills development. Economic decisions made in your community have a direct impact on the availability and quality of jobs, the availability of education and training needed to get better-paying jobs, and the availability of basic needs such as housing, transportation and child care.

This hands-on curriculum empowers participants to take a stronger role in their own job development by showing the connection between their economic independence and changes in the local economy.At the same time, Superstores, Schools and Sewers, uses an accessible, no-nonsense approach to teaching basic analysis, goal-setting and effective meeting skills, which are also important employment skills.

The manual includes complete lecture notes and valuable teaching aids and exercises that allow this curriculum to be used in a number of ways and with a wide variety of audiences.

Regular price  $94.95                       Discounted for members (20% off) $75.95
SAVE EVEN MORE BY BUYING AS A PACKAGE!
RESOURCES: Expanding Your Expertise
Domestic Violence, Employment &
Self-SufficiencyDomestic violence is one of the most serious barriers women face when trying to become economically self-sufficient. Don’t waste time wading through the mountains of information that has been written about domestic violence.This installment of Expanding Your Expertise is unique because it gives you the information you need — how to handle the issues of domestic violence victims who participate in your employment and training program.Price $14.95
Discounted for members (20% off)  $11.95		 Substance Abuse, Job Training and Self-SufficiencySubstance abuse remains one of the primary reasons women drop out of education and training programs. Substance Abuse, Job Training and Self-Sufficiency, the second installment of Expanding Your Expertise, gives you solid tips and resources for helping your program staff become more adept at identifying substance abuse problems and handling them more effectively.

Price $14.95
Discounted for members (20% off)  $11.95
SAVE EVEN MORE BY BUYING AS A PACKAGE!
RESOURCES DESIGNED WITH YOUR PROGRAM PARTICIPANTS IN MIND:
Transitions & Triumphs NewsletterTransitions & Triumphs, the quarterly newsletter designed specifically for women in transition, is filled with practical, every day information. It features articles on money, career and health issues, as well as regular spotlights on emerging occupations. Every issue highlights an inspiring story of a woman who has beaten the odds and achieved economic self-sufficiency. Save now on low bulk prices!

2 – 250 copies     25 cents each
251-500 copies   22 cents each
501+ copies        20 cents each

 Resource Tip Sheet PackageMake sure your program participants have the information you know they need. Each in an easy-to-understand, handy format, the Women Work! Tip Sheet Package comes complete with valuable tip sheets that deal with issues your program participants face daily. Some of the issues covered include finding financial aid; conquering credit card debt; job interviewing; defending yourself against sexual harassment; assessing whether self-employment is for you; and more.

With your own camera-ready set, you’ll be able to use these tip sheets over and over! They make wonderful handouts for your workshops or to have available in common areas.

Price $24.95
Discounted for members (20% off)  $19.95
SPECIAL DISCOUNT PACKAGES COST LESS!
Women Work! now offers a 15% savings on special packages of publications. This gives you a fantastic opportunity to build your resource library — at a price you can afford! And, Women Work! members receive an additional 20% off this price for a total savings of 35%. Order today and save!
PACKAGE 1
Curricula PackageThese fully integrated, step-by-step curricula give you everything you need to enhance your job-readiness program. With exercises and workplace situational role-plays that reflect the world you know, these curricula make it all easy and fun! Buy them as a package and save up to $80! And, as an added bonus, when you order the curriculum package, we will send you a Set of our Work Your Image! guides – one Leader’s Guide, 20 Participant’s Guides and 40 Personal Worksheets.You get:

  • On the Rights Track: An Empowerment and Workforce Rights Curriculum
  • Superstores, Schools and Sewers: A Curriculum for Understanding How Your Local Economy Works
  • BONUS with package: Work Your Image! Creating a Professional Appearance to Get and Keep a Job

Individually priced $199.90
Discounted Package Price (15% off)   $169.95             Member Discount Package (35% off) $135.95
PACKAGE 2
Expanding Your Expertise: Tools for Building Your Program You get:

  • Domestic Violence, Employment and Self-Sufficiency
  • Substance Abuse, Job Training and Self-Sufficiency
  • Women Work! Resource Tip Sheet Package
  • BONUS with package: Expanding Your Expertise storage holder to protect your installments

Individually priced $54.85
Discounted Package Price (15% off) $46.62              Member Discount Package (35% off) $37.30
Women WorkBusiness

Tax Credits

It’s tax season again. And, believe it or not, that could mean good news–and extra cash for you.

FREE Help Preparing Your Tax Return

If you need help preparing your tax return and Schedule EIC, you can get assistance from trained tax preparers free of charge!

Hiring a commercial tax preparer could cost you $55 to $100. It can cost another $30 to $90 to get a “quick refund”. A program called Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA), run by the IRS, provides free income tax preparation help to low- and moderate-income workers. Anyone eligible for the EIC is automatically eligible to use VITA.

VITA volunteers are trained by the IRS to fill out tax forms and answer questions. Most communities have several VITA sites. To find the VITA site near you, call the IRS toll-free at 1-800-TAX-1040. Ask for the Taxpayer Education Coordinator Office in your state. The Taxpayer Coordinator will be able to tell you about local VITA sites.

Learn more about VITA and other programs for assisting with tax preparation/filing at the IRS site.

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Women WorkBusiness

National Directory of Women’s Education & Training Programs

Women Work! makes its Program Directory available online to assist individual women in identifying programs and services in their local communities. We recommend that you contact each program in your area directly to learn more about their requirements for participation, the types of training they provide and the types of services available.

The directory is also a valuable resource to business and industry employers seeking to identify qualified and skilled individuals or programs with whom they could develop partnerships to meet their workforce needs. Employers who are interested in discussing partnership opportunities with Women Work! and programs in our Network should contact us at (202) 467-6346 or by email.

We periodically update the directory. If you are aware of more current information on a program or would like to have your program listed, please contact our Membership & Field Services Department at (202) 467-6346 or e-mail us at [email protected].

The Program Directory is organized by state. Please choose a state below, and the programs available in that state will be displayed to you.

Women WorkBusiness

Work, Money & Life Tip Sheets for Women

Women Work! tip sheets offer practical information for your life. The tip sheets are available below for free download.

You can request up to 3 free tip sheets to be mailed to you.

call: (202) 467-6346

email: [email protected]

mail: the order form

faxing: (202-467-5366)

Join Women Work! and receive a set of all available tip sheets, in addition to all of the other benefits included in a Women Work! membership. For more information and to join, visit our membership page.

Accessing the Tip Sheets

Below are links to our series of tip sheets. You will need Acrobat Reader on your computer to access these files because they are Adobe Acrobat files (pdf). Acrobat Reader is a free software. If your computer does not already have it, you can download the most recent version from the Adobe site.

Click on the tip sheet name below to access that resource.

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Women WorkBusiness

From A Kitchen Table To Congress

Women Work!’s History

In the early 70s, as the divorce rate soared, many women found themselves “fired” from their jobs as homemakers. In 1975, Laurie Shields, a 55-year-old widow unable to find work after 15 years as a full-time homemaker and mother, contacted Tish Sommers, who she heard was “doing something for older women.”

Tish, then 57 and divorced after 23 years, called herself a “freelance agitator.” She said to Laurie, “DON’T AGONIZE, ORGANIZE!”

And organize they did, joining forces with Milo Smith, the first director of the Jobs for Older Women Action Project in Oakland, California, and with Barbara Dudley, a public interest attorney. Together they drafted the first displaced homemaker legislation, introduced in 1975 in California and later in Congress by former Representative Yvonne Burke.

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Advice for Women Job Seekers: Appearance Matters

In New Poll, Americans Say a Woman’s Appearance
Affects Whether She is Taken Seriously on the Job,
Considered for Raises & Promotions

In this graduation season, Americans have advice for the millions of women job-seekers who are graduating from high school, college and job training programs: A professional appearance will help you get and keep a job, and win responsibilities, raises and promotions. A new poll finds that nearly seven in ten Americans (69 percent) – and more than eight in ten women – say clothing, hair and makeup are very or extremely important for a woman on the job, and for her confidence. Large majorities say that a woman’s appearance affects whether she is taken seriously, asked to represent her company at outside meetings, and considered for raises and promotions.
The poll was conducted by Yankelovich Partners, Inc., for Work Your Image!, a joint program of Women Work! The National Network for Women’s Employment and the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrance Association (CTFA). Work Your Image! is designed to help displaced homemakers, single parents, welfare recipients and other women in transition create a professional appearance to get and keep a job.
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