Welcome to the Center for Working Life.

Since 1982 CWL has been providing training, consultation, and written materials to workplace education programs, workers who have lost their jobs, and to the organizations that serve them. Drawing on a unique blend of professional training and on the job experience, we have provided services that are accessible, appropriate and effective for working people. Three key elements of our success have been:


• We design and deliver services from a worker or client-centered perspective.

• We address the psychological and emotional impact of job loss, retraining, or
-- workplace change, and its effect on workers families.

• We use trained peer support specialists to provide information and serve as
---liaison between workers and service providers.

 

A worker-centered approach

For services to be effective, they must be designed from the perspective of the people using them. Programs and trainings are designed to address specific barriers to using program successfully. Our consultation and training methods are based on listening to people and combining our knowledge with theirs to provide the best possible support and services to workers whether they are in a union, a workplace education program, or a dislocated worker project
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Peer Support

Starting Over

For the last twenty years, CWL has published Starting Over:
A Survival Guide for Dislocated Workers and Their Families.
This unique illustrated booklet is written for use in pre- and post-layoff programs. It explains the impact of job loss and its effect on workers and their families. It also contains helpful tips for finding jobs and using training effectively.
More than one million copies of this booklet have been distributed through laid-off worker programs across the country. The booklet is available in English, Spanish, Russian, and Vietnamese translations.

 

Starting Over


We have provided peer support training in more than 1500 mass layoff and closure situations across the country and in Eastern Europe. More than a million copies of our publication for workers in transition,
Starting Over: A Survival Guide for Laid-Off Workers and Their Families, have been distributed.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


© 2008