Linda Butler has seen this first hand. A Training Futures job course provided her with the skills to get a job that not only provided her with health insurance for the first time in her life, a salary increase of more than $35,000 annually and weekends off, but also a new sense of hope and self-esteem.

Training Futures, a program of Northern Virginia Family Service, prepares low-income, unemployed or under-paid individuals to make the move from dead-end jobs or sporadic employment to stable, professional careers that provide livable wages, benefits and opportunities for advancement. Since 1996, Training Futures has trained over 1,000 people, many of them parents of the over 1,500 children that have indirectly benefited from their parents’ advancing careers and the 91 percent increase in average income they have experienced.

With a Stepping Stones Jobs Fund grant from The Women’s Foundation, the program has graduated and placed women in professional jobs and developed successful partnerships with key employers in the region, including Inova Fairfax Hospital, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Northern Virginia Community College.

To learn more about how one job training course can change thousands of lives, visit:

• Training Futures success story: Linda Butler
• Training Futures success story: Beatrice Birihanyuma 
• A Training Futures Success Story: My Home
• Stepping Stones 2006 Report: Paving Women’s Pathways to Economic Security
• Stepping Stones
• 2005-2006 Annual Report: Creating Pathways to Opportunity
• Northern Virginia Family Service
• Training Futures

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