The New Choices/New Options program at Pennsylvania College of Technology − which provides career guidance and life-skills training for single parents, displaced homemakers and those pursuing nontraditional vocations − has been awarded $156,480 in state funding for the 2000-01 academic year.
With an additional $4,104 provided by Penn College, the New Choices/New Options program, which is administered through Career and Counseling Services at the College, will receive funding totaling $160,584 to continue serving the 130 to 170 students it benefits annually.
The program helps participants build the self-confidence and esteem needed to cope with life and face new responsibilities. Facets include career exploration and assessment and time-management coaching as well as training in assertiveness, goal-setting, decision-making and problem-solving.
New Choices/New Options focuses on high-tech, high-wage jobs through which participants can gain economic self-sufficiency. Students receive exposure to math and science and other areas of technical training to aid in the pursuit of technological careers. Financial assistance for tuition and books is provided, as are an array of career-counseling and personal-support services.
New Choices/New Options supports the Workforce Investment Act goal of establishing locally based initiatives to equip Pennsylvania's work force to meet the needs of business and industry, and the program will provide services through Lycoming County CareerLink when it begins operation.
In May, New Choices/New Options co-hosted a well-attended teen parent conference at the College with Susquehanna Health System. An annual Spring Leadership Day in Harrisburg allows program participants to offer public testimony about the benefits of New Choices/New Options while gaining exposure to the legislative process.
"Sometimes all you really need is the self-confidence and willingness to learn," one New Choices/New Options participant wrote in support of the program. "I would like to thank the staff of New Choices/New Options for giving me the opportunity to find me again. I can still get emotional thinking about the day the program ended and what an accomplishment I felt when given my certificate of completion."
New Choices/New Options is a free program offered in Lycoming, Tioga, Bradford and Potter counties. Coordinators for the program at Penn College are Patricia S. Gordon and Henrietta K. Hadley.
For more information about New Choices/New Options, call Counseling and Career Services at Penn College at (570) 326-3761, ext. 7633.