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Building Skills, Building Communities, Building the Future

September 2006

For more than 40 years, the Senior Community Service Employment Program (SCSEP) has served the job training and placement needs of people age 55 or older with limited financial resources.

SCSEP is a community service and work-based training program for older workers. Participants have access to SCSEP services as well as other employment assistance available through the One-Stop Career Centers of the workforce investment system.

Created by the Economic Opportunity Act, SCSEP has helped more than one million older Americans enter the job market and pioneered ways for older workers to respond to the changing demands of the workplace.

The need for SCSEP and similar programs is expected to rise sharply nationwide as Baby Boomers age. According to a Senior Service America study, the nation's 55-plus population is expected to increase 30 percent by 2012. Nationwide, the number of older adults near or below the poverty line is projected to increase 41 percent from about 6.2 million in 2004 to 8.7 million in 2015.

Ida Edwards lives in Ashtabula. She is 75 years old and had been out of the workforce for more than 10 years. She had a simple reason for enrolling in SCSEP: her Social Security check wasn't meeting her monthly expenses.

Ida could not have made ends meet if she weren't frugal. She had hoped that her husband would leave her a little something, but he had to go into a nursing home before he died. To qualify for Medicaid coverage, the family had to spend down its assets.

When she enrolled in SCSEP Ida said she felt a little leery about anybody hiring her at her age. She had no computer experience and didn't really know what she could do. But the good people at the Ashtabula County Workforce Policy Board found her something that makes her feel young.

For the past year, she has worked at the local Head Start program while she gets on-the-job training as a SCSEP participant. She serves as a monitor aboard a van that takes children to speech therapy. She talks to the children, sings with them, plays with them and helps them find their hats and coats.

Stories like Ida's are common across the state. The faces are different, but the need and desire to work is consistent. SCSEP fills that need by tapping that desire.

SCSEP participants put in 10 million hours of community service each year. The employer, usually a non-profit agency, gets the help it needs to expand services while the SCSEP participant learns key job skills. SCSEP employers include food banks, libraries, hospitals, day care programs and government agencies.

To be eligible for SCSEP, applicants must:

• Be 55 or older and a state resident;
• Have an annual family income of no more than 125 percent of the established federal poverty income guidelines ($12,250 for single and $4,250 for each additional person in the household);
• Be eligible to work in the United States; and
• Be currently unemployed.

For more information on SCSEP or to find a local provider, visit GoldenBuckeye.com or call toll-free 1-877-632-7827.