Center expands curriculum, plans move

COVINGTON — Five years after it was founded, the Life Learning Center in Covington is expanding its curriculum, hiring a full-time director of educational programming, and preparing for a move to a permanent location.

The center’s supporters say the changes are aimed at helping Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky’s “at risk” population make permanent lifestyle changes aimed at helping them overcome barriers to employment.

Clients who use the center’s free services may be people who are at risk of losing their shelter, but who are continuing to support themselves and their families and are willing to accept help to change their situations.

“What we intend is not a quick fix, or a Band-aid,” said Denise Govan, executive director. “Only those who truly want permanent transformational change in their lives will be accepted to the Life Learning Center programs. They must be willing to make a long term commitment to us and to themselves.”

The center, a United Way funded agency that prepares low income people for productive, sustainable careers through education, job search training and life coaching, was the vision of Corporex Companies’ chairman, Bill Butler, who continues to be involved as a board member and remains one of the center’s primary financial backers.

For a little more than five years, the Life Learning Center has helped a variety of job seekers – from experienced professionals to those with multiple employment barriers – find and keep the right job, Govan said. Sixty-one percent of the center’s clients are still employed after one year.

Since October 2006, more than 700 people have graduated from “Working Toward A Better Life,” an intensive, one-week work preparation program that’s supplemented by employment coaching and a “hands-on, guided lab” where participants can do everything from job searches to creating a resume or a LinkedIn profile.

But many of those who sought out the agency’s services found themselves repeatedly facing the same obstacles to success, Govan said.

“Individuals told us that they wanted the tools to basically learn how to live,” she said. “... So we built this curriculum that complements the employment program.”

Clients will now start their training with a new one-week program designed to help them deal with the emotional, psychological and physical needs that are often barriers to employment.

“Foundations For a Better Life” will be followed by “Pillars of Life,” 13 weeks of two nights a week classes that will deal with things such as how to take care of yourself when it comes to health and exercise, how to reduce anxiety, especially in dealing with a boss, and how to deal with transportation issues. Instruction will be offered by trained volunteers who their students can relate to.

“The only Ph.Ds these instructors will have are those they earned overcoming crisis and challenge in their own lives,” Butler said. “The people that we’re dealing with don’t need some professor that’s never been there. They need somebody who can say, ‘This is my life. This is my struggle.’ ”

An example could be someone who’d turned their life around after overcoming a drug or alcohol addiction, Butler said. Another could be someone who’s experienced bankruptcy or a financial crisis. Yet another could be someone who’s gone on to a successful career while dealing with a physical handicap.

The common factor would be that all of the volunteer faculty have achieved personal and professional success after overcoming a crisis or difficulty.

Duties of the new director of educational programming, who’s scheduled to be hired by next month, will include the recruitment and training of faculty.

The final component of the curriculum will be the one that’s been the staple of the Life Learning Center since its inception - the week-long “Working Toward A Better Life” work preparation program.

Besides learning how to stand out from other job applicants, clients receive regular one-on-one life coaching sessions to hold them accountable to goals they’ve set for their personal and professional lives.

Since it opened, the Life Learning Center has been operating from leased premises at 315 E. 15th St. in Covington. However, the center’s backers hope to soon change that after securing additional corporate partners and getting new programs up and running.

Ultimately, the center hopes to move to the former Robke Chevrolet property in the 1300 block of Madison Avenue in Covington that Butler’s Corporex Companies has owned for about eight years.

Plans call for renovating the building to include state of the art educational lecture rooms and halls, classrooms, supporting services, administration offices and offices for partner agencies that will have staff on site. When the full program is in place, the Life Learning Center’s staff will increase from six full-time employees to 30 to 40.

“Our ultimate mission is simple – transformational change, self sufficiency, dignity, then ... contributions to others by the graduates themselves,” Butler said.