CWA Spring Conference: Saffron Strand leads workshop

More workforce professionals are taking an interest in the methods Saffron Strand employs to get the homeless and others who are chronically unemployed back into the workforce. These best practices are part of the evolving Saffron Strand Model.

The California Workforce Association invited Saffron Strand CEO Yvonne Nair to lead a workshop on “Breaking the Cycle of Chronic Unemployment” as part of CWA’s 2014 Annual Spring Conference for Workforce Development Professionals, April 22-24 in San Diego.

Yvonne’s workshop took place April 22 in which she described the Saffron Strand Model as a cost-effective, non-profit, community-based approach for the homeless, hard-to-employ, and long-term unemployed to re-enter the workforce with the technical and soft skills necessary for gainful employment in the private sector.

She detailed how the Model establishes an “intentional community” of chronically unemployed, homeless “members” who work on a voluntary basis for the non-profit organization.

Saffron Strand’s members work during normal business hours in a dignified, respectful, professional quality, office environment called the Saffron Strand Center, located in our 140-square-foot office space in Point Richmond, CA.

Members work side-by-side with volunteer staff following a structured schedule called the “work-ordered day.” The day-to-day operation of Saffron Strand depends upon the individual, daily, productive work of its unpaid members. Members benefit from on-the-job training that develops marketable job skills and work-related social skills.

Read more about the CWA Annual Spring Conference. See the Conference program.