Harnessing the Power of Collaboration for our Citizens - A story of Lawrence County

 This article appeared in the IU Health Community Impact Investment Fund Annual Report 2023.

We're Doing it Together

In 2020, Jessica Terrell walked out of the Rockville Correctional Facility, where she’d spent the last two years serving time for possession of methamphetamine. With four children at home, Terrell knew she had to make major changes in her life. “I was scared,” Terrell said. “I didn’t know what to do.”

Her probation officer suggested she enroll in Introduction to Local Jobs and Skills (ILJAS), a three-week philanthropyfunded program offered by the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council that equips participants for careers in welding, machining and construction. Ten days after her release, Terrell enrolled in the program.

In addition to mastering a new craft, the program connected her with prospective employers, prepared her for interviews, enabled her to make new friends and helped her regain her confidence.

Today, Terrell works at a Toyota plant in Lawrenceville, Illinois. She’s engaged and recently celebrated four years of sobriety. “I would not be sitting here, living the life I am without the ILJAS program,” Terrell said.

Since it launched in 2020, ILJAS has guided 12 cohorts of students through the program and graduated 123. “The recidivism rate of people going through the program is 7% compared to 35% county-wide,” said Joe Timbrook, director of Career Development at the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council (LCEGC). “I get texts every day from students asking questions or telling me they got a job.”

A DEGREE OF DIFFERENCE
ILJAS is just one of a handful of ways that the Lawrence County Economic Growth Council is helping improve quality of life for its citizens. With the assistance of a $300,000 grant from the Community Impact Investment Fund, Timbrook and his team have also formed an Adult Education Advisory Board to ensure that more eligible adults can earn their high school equivalency. “2,500 of our 36,000 adults in Lawrence County don’t have their high school diploma,” Timbrook said. “When we formed our Coalition, we began a collaboration with our partner to ensure that there was a system in place to afford adults the opportunity to get a diploma. There would be years where we only had a few people getting their high school equivalency.”

One way that the LCEGC made progress in this area was to strike a deal with local judges and prosecutors that mandated anyone who came through the court system to complete their high school diploma or take the skills course as part of their plea agreement. “We’re on target to have over 100 people get their HSE this year,” Timbrook said. “It’s just amazing.”

INCREASING ACCESS TO THE 21ST CENTURY SCHOLARS PROGRAM
In addition to enabling more Lawrence County adults to obtain their high school diplomas, the LCEGC is working to ensure that current middle and high school students in the community have a clearer path to a college degree. In the past, the LCEGC Workforce Coalition has advocated the Commission for Higher Education to simplify the enrollment process for the 21st Century Scholars Program, an early-college promise program that awards two- or fouryear scholarships that pay up to 100% tuition at eligible Indiana colleges and universities for qualified students.

Previous surveys have shown that Lawrence County struggles to sign up even 25% of eligible students for the 21st Century Scholars Program, due in large part to the complexity of the enrollment system. These efforts came to fruition in March 2023 when the Department of Education announced the “Simplified Application for 21st Century Scholars.” Timbrook is confident that the county’s enrollment numbers will soar.

“The best thing about this work is that we have a very cohesive plan and stakeholders who are invested in it,” Timbrook said. “We’re doing it for the entire community and
we’re doing it together.”