By John Byczkowski
The Cincinnati Enquirer

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The One-Stop center is at 1811 Losantiville Road, Roselawn. A copy of the five-year Local Strategic Plan for Workforce Development can be found online. The Workforce Policy Board is soliciting public comment on the plan through Feb. 14. Send written comments to Southwest Ohio Region Workforce Policy Board, Attention: John Young, Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, 300 Carew Tower, 441 Vine St., Cincinnati, OH 45202; or to Loretta Workman at the Hamilton County Job and Family Services, 237 William Howard Taft, Third Floor, Cincinnati, OH 45219. E-mail comments to John Young at cwilkerson@gccc.com or to Loretta Workman at workml@jfs.hamilton-co.org. If approved at the local and state levels, the plan will be implemented July 1, although many aspects of the plan are already being put into place.

Gail Finkbeiner of Golf Manor has been unemployed for a year, since being laid off by Convergys in Norwood. She dug through newspapers and the Internet looking for work but found little more than part-time jobs to help pay the bills.

A month ago, however, she learned of the One-Stop center in Roselawn. There, she's getting help to brush up her resume, as well as counseling to help her figure out what kind of job she's qualified for.

Like many jobless, she thought she could find work on her own, but she's learning that the counseling is useful. "I could have been using this place all along," Finkbeiner, a lawyer by training, said. "I think anybody can use all the help they can get."

The One-Stop center is a sign of an evolution in dealing with the unemployed. An estimated 60,000 people in the region are underemployed - laid off, chronically unemployed, working poor or disabled. Many face barriers to unemployment that go beyond a lack of training - including depression, substance abuse, shift preferences, literacy, or a lack of child care and transportation.

More than three-quarters of the adults who come to the One-Stop center - a nickname for the Southwest Ohio Career Resource Network, supported by both Hamilton County and the City of Cincinnati - need help beyond simply finding work. The center has been operating for less than a year, and the Workforce Policy Board, which oversees the One-Stop center, this month unveiled its plan to round out the services provided there.

"The idea of a One-Stop has been here, but nowhere near the sophistication it's being driven to with the strategy of the next five years," said David Phillips, co-founder of the Cincinnati Works job agency and a member of the board.

The changes are being spurred by The Workforce Investment Act of 1998, called WIA. That law said that for local job service agencies to continue receiving federal money, they had to adopt a "one-stop" approach to working with the unemployed. The city and county are required to make changes to keep $4.5 million in federal funding for job services.

A one-stop job center offers access to all the services that will help the unemployed return to the work force - not just job listings and job training, but help finding day care or transportation, plus access to other benefits if they're veterans or need rehabilitation services.

WIA replaces the Job Training Partnership Act, which tended to view all unemployed the same: All they needed was more training. John Young, transition director for the Workforce Policy Board, said all that training only led to more training and few jobs. That's because the training wasn't often aligned with what businesses in the region needed. And, jobless people who needed other services - special training for the handicapped, for instance - were sent to other agencies across town.

The One-Stop concept brings those services under one roof - literacy services from Cincinnati Public Schools and Great Oaks Institute of Technology, veterans programs from the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and more. Thirteen agencies will be included in the One-Stop center, which is now looking to move from Roselawn to larger quarters near downtown.

Chuck Bowles, supervisor of career planning and training at the One-Stop center, is glad to see the changes. "Someone sat down and finally said 'it ain't working,' " he said. "We were sending people all over the place for services. It was ridiculous. A bus token has meaning to you when you're unemployed."

So far, the changes seem to be paying off. In 2003, the One-Stop center placed 1,003 people in new jobs, a slight increase from the 981 placed in 2002.

Quantity might come through quality, and that's improving. The average starting pay in 2003 for people finding work through the One-Stop center was $13.01 an hour, up 23 percent from $10.56 in 2002.

Helping the jobless is only one-half the center's mission. The bigger challenge might be getting employers involved.

"Many jobs go unfilled because there's a lack of qualified workers," Young said. WIA mandates that the 51 percent of the members of the Workforce Policy Board be businesspeople. The local board has members from construction companies as well as Fifth Third Bank and Kroger Co.

The services are free, but "employers have their doubts going in," Young said.

Tonicia Dean of Golf Manor has used the center to improve her resume and identify skills that employers want. That's kept her upbeat about her prospects, although she's been out of work four months.

This situation can really put you in the dumps," she said, "but everybody here is very encouraging."

E-mail johnb@enquirer.com