The Bucks County Opportunity Council, in partnership with William Penn Bank Community Foundation and First National Bank of Newtown, is offering a virtual “Bridges Out of Poverty” training, Friday, October 15th, via Zoom.
These training opportunities are available to anyone (in businesses, places of worship, agencies, non-profits, volunteers) who works with people in poverty and is interested in understanding their challenges and strengths in order to best serve them.
Tammy B. Schoonover, ACSW, LSW, Chief Program Officer at BCOC, leads the workshops. Tammy is a Bridges Certified Instructor through aha! Process, Inc., a Ruby Payne Company.
Bridges Out of Poverty trainings takes a comprehensive approach to understanding the dynamics that cause and maintain poverty. The focus of these trainings is to provide a broad overview of concepts as well as concrete, practical tools and strategies for improving outcomes for people living in poverty. Participants learn how economic class and its hidden rules affect behaviors and mindsets; what key resources, besides financial, help move a person out of poverty if they chose; and the importance of language and communication skills. Poverty research, the theory of change and how to engage the unique strengths of people in poverty also will be discussed.
For over 55 years, the Opportunity Council has served low-income families in Bucks County by helping them to stabilize when in crisis, garner resources to achieve a livable wage, gain additional education and training, and work towards economic self-sufficiency.
As the lead anti-poverty agency in the County, BCOC works diligently to create partnerships with government, other non-profits, businesses, and educational institutions to alleviate poverty. It offers community education in the form of Bridges Out of Poverty Training and Poverty Simulation events, all of which educate the community about how to improve services and outcomes for those in poverty. BCOC also offers Workplace Stability Training for managers who hire and supervise minimum and low-wage workers.
To learn more about BCOC trainings, visit www.bcoc.org.