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BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SUCCESS
Individualized Assistance
There are many elements involved when bringing together the unique students who come to CFL with the Workplace Essential 
Skills program in order to produce a successful outcome. McGovern believes that one of the major reasons her students are succeeding is CFL’s strong emphasis on meeting learners' individual needs. “We have to start where our learners start. For one thing, our students enter the Workplace Essential Skills program at a pre-GED level (6-8 grade). However, we also find that truly supporting our learners means offering fundamentals that go beyond the Workplace Essential Skills program, beyond academics.”
What motivates people to come to the Workplace Essential Skills program? McGovern describes some of the various individuals she sees, “One person may have lost a job that didn’t require a high school diploma and now discovers that in today’s job market only jobs that require high school diplomas or above are available. Another person comes to us because the court or state mandated the training. Some people are just plain desperate to turn around failure and find a way to successfully move into the work force. And, some come to the Workplace Essential Skills program because they want to complete their unfinished educational requirements (GED), hoping to move on to 
a better life and more opportunities. A number of our students understand the importance of computer skills in today’s workplace, so they sign up for Workplace Essential Skills primarily to develop basic computer competencies.”
McGovern tells about one student’s successful experience doing just that, "'Beverly' came to us after enrolling in the CareerLink basic skills reading program, but also knew that computer skills would be important to her job success. Even though Beverly had a borderline score on the Workplace Essential Skills entrance survey, she entered the program anyway because we saw how motivated she was to succeed with computers. We began with two hours a week to give Beverly the extra computer tutoring support so she could develop enough basic computer competency to navigate the Workplace Essential Skills virtual online classroom independently. Then she would be able to begin her chosen Workplace Essential Skills math study module. After three weeks and six hours of this extra support time, Beverly was improving her skills, but I began to wonder how cost effective it was to dedicate so much time to one student.”
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