Workshops

The WIN program includes six 75–90 minute workshops that can be used in tandem or independently to support individuals who are unemployed, underemployed, or seeking new career options.

Our Workshops

Planning, Exploring, and Engaging in the Job Search

This module can be offered in two workshops.

Losing work is a crisis, but also offers opportunities to develop a pathway to a sustainable, and optimally, meaningful work life. Participants will engage in two workshops that can be offered together or as standalone workshops—one workshop is devoted to career planning and the second workshop focuses on developing and implementing action plans in searching for new work options and opportunities. Included in the two workshops are exercises to enhance self-awareness, explore new career paths, and reinvigorate the job search process using state-of-the art evidence-based practices.

Deepening and Sustaining Relationships

Being unemployed or underemployed and searching for a job are often very lonely challenges. In this workshop, participants will have an opportunity to deepen their relationships, which is an essential source of support and resilience. Using the strengths of working in a group of peers, the workshop will foster a renewed sense of purpose for participants to connect with their friends and family, and develop connections within the group that can be sustained for the long haul.

Fostering Social Awareness and Reducing Self-Blame

Navigating work disruptions often leads individuals to experience shame and stigma along with self-blame. This workshop focuses on helping participants enhance their critical consciousness (CC), which refers to the capacity to read the world and to enact change in one’s life and context. Developing CC offers a powerful reframe about the causes of unemployment, which can reduce self-blame. CC also furnishes a protective factor that enhances resilience and promotes active engagement in one’s life. Activities include group-based discussions of participants’ experiences, which provide the content for a discussion of the larger factors that constrain the labor market.

Building Emotional Resilience and Self-Care

This session is offered in two workshops.

Managing unemployment and underemployment is hard and stressful. These two workshops focus on self-care and stress reduction that can help to prevent mental health problems, which research indicates are far more prevalent and challenging during periods of job disruption. Participants will have an opportunity to build emotional resilience and enhance their self-care strategies, which are essential for managing work-related stresses.

Testimonials

“Some of our career counseling clients had stopped attending individual appointments because they were struggling with issues of self-blame and feelings of rejection related to a job search or long-term unemployment. The WIN small group sessions provided an opportunity to re-engage in the job search process in a different way: one that acknowledged the emotional impact of job loss that most people feel but are reluctant to discuss with family or friends.”

Peggy Truitt, Program Director, Career Strategies, JEVS Human Services
“The innovative workshops and trainings that WIN has produced offer a game-changing chance to provide engagement, self-reflection, substance, meaning, support, and tools to any job hunter who is trying to move forward, regardless of where they have been and where they are going. This workshop invites anyone in and gives people new powerful options for success no matter where they are starting.”

Susan Jepson, WIN Facilitator and Resume Specialist, Operation ABLE
“The WIN model forefronts the important social/emotional, psychological, and systemic issues that play a critical role in what keeps individuals in the job search game, a game that can often feel like the best of the job seeker is not being valued. I have had the opportunity to offer the WIN workshops, and have seen firsthand how this unique and much needed approach really makes a difference.”

WIN Workshop Facilitator

Resources