Employment Services

The Cambodian Family has over 23 years experience providing employment services to refugees and immigrants in Orange County.  We have an excellent track record in preparing our clients for work, finding them suitable jobs, helping them retain their jobs, and helping them move up to better jobs.  Since 1992, we have found jobs for over 5,400 refugees and immigrants, over 400 job placements per year. We currently offer employment services under four programs.

Refugee Services

For the past 23 years we have had contracts to provide employment and supportive services to recently arrived refugees, the last 18 with the County of Orange Social Services Agency.  This program is funded by the Federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).  Since 1998, we have placed over 1100 refugees in jobs through our Refugee Services Program.

Daisy Wheel Network

The Daisy Wheel Network is a collaboration of 10 local agencies, funded by Santa Ana's Federal Empowerment Zone (FEZ).  Through this program, we provide job counseling, job placement, job retention, and supportive services, as well as refer clients to Vocational ESL and other needed services.  Our clients are residents of our local Minnie Street neighborhood, which is comprised primarily of Hispanic immigrants and Cambodian refugee families.  Over the past three years of this program, we have served 270 clients and placed 81 in jobs, meeting or exceeding all of our program goals.

Building the Future

This program is a collaboration of four agencies, funded by the Federal ORR, to train refugee women to open their own home childcare businesses.  The Cambodian Family is the lead agency in this collaborative that focuses on women from Cambodia, Vietnam, East Africa, and Arabic-speaking countries.  The Cambodian Family has served 50 refugees and 113 immigrants (mostly women) over the past three years.  During the past year, The Freeman Foundation supported our most recent training class, composed entirely of immigrants, since ORR funds are limited to serving refugees.

Upward Mobility

Our Stability and Upward Mobility Program serves refugee and immigrant Southeast Asian adults in Orange County, California, who speak limited English and have limited economic resources.  Our program offers stability by helping participants find jobs, and upward mobility by providing training and support that will set them on the road to a more secure future.  Our Freeman Program participants receive job counseling, job referrals, assisted job search, job development and placement, job retention services, employment support and other employment services.  These services are offered by our Job Developer and Family Coaches who also assist our clients with transportation, childcare issues, and family challenges.  Participants attend three practical workshops - each of which presents English language training with material that is useful for success in the workplace.  The three workshops are: Get Ready to Work, in which clients learn how to demonstrate expected workplace attitudes and skills in order to get hired; Communicate to Keep Your Job, in which clients learn to resolve communication issues involving supervisors and co-workers; and Upward Mobility, in which clients learn strategies for long-term career development.  In addition, Freeman Program participants may enroll in our Vocational ESL class and/or our Family Childcare Training class, called Building the Future, which prepares Southeast Asian refugees and immigrants to open their own family childcare businesses.

We have served 372 participants during the current program.  We have placed 329 clients in jobs, with a job retention rate of 84%.  Of the 291 placed, 160 have achieved some measure of upward mobility.  This includes 91 workers who have achieved wage increases at their present company, 72 who have achieved new benefits at their company, and 58 who have been placed more than once, and received a higher starting wage in their second job. 

With respect to education and training, 21 of our participants completed our Vocational ESL class and 2 others are still in the class.  Also, 25 participants have completed our Family Childcare Training Program.  Three of the recent graduates of this program have already opened their own family childcare businesses.  All 372 of our participants completed at least one of our Upward Mobility workshops, 284 completed two, and 190 completed all three.

Major Successes.  We have developed a model that allows us to make a significant impact using limited resources.  The popularity of our program is gratifying.  At recent workshops we surveyed participants, asking them whether our workshops have been helpful.  Of 69 responses, 68 were positive, only one negative.