Six months after he was arrested on gun charges, Larry Yarbrough got a job at McDonald’s. It took eight solid weeks of discovering his values and some “Real Talk” about making good choices.
Yarbrough (at left in photo) was one of nine teenagers who graduated from an eight-week Job Readiness and Life Skills Program at the New Haven Family Alliance last week.
Earlier in the day, he was at McDonald’s restaurant in Cheshire, accepting a job offer. He starts work on Monday, his 18th birthday.
The job training program, which has run five times in the last two years, is a product of the New Haven Family Alliance (NHFA), a nonprofit social services agency.
Thursday’s ceremony took place in a crowded function room in the agency’s offices on James Street.
One by one, the graduates were called to the front of the room, where parents and supporters applauded as NHFA’s Shirley West (at right in photo) handed out certificates of completion.
It was the culmination of two months of work for the nine graduates — seven males and two female. The program is designed for “at-risk youth,” young people in danger of making decisions that will land them in jail or in the streets. Some of them, like Yarbrough, have gotten tangled in the judicial system.
Program participants were recruited by street outreach workers (pictured), who at times had to personally bring them to class, West said after the ceremony.
When the class began, there were 33 students, she said. The class quickly dwindled to the nine who were willing to show up for the two-hour classes, four days a week. There West and others guided them through exercises designed to help them to identify their values and their goals. They were instructed in conflict resolution techniques. And they learned about how to write resumes and present themselves to potential employers.
The final half-hour of each class was devoted to Real Talk, said Tyrone Weston (at left in photo with Yarbrough and student Maurice Pittman), the program’s director, tucking into a plate of fried chicken and collards after the ceremony. Real Talk is a time for discussion led by the street outreach workers, who spoke about their own experiences of life in the streets of New Haven, Weston explained.
Yarbrough, standing nearby, said there was one Real Talk session in particular that got through to him. It was about “Ray-Ray,” an archetypical figure, the guy on the block who’s full of big ideas but never goes anywhere in life.
“We all know a Ray-Ray,” Weston said. Ray-Ray is the guy who’s always hanging out on the street, getting into trouble, he said.
The Real Talk session helped Yarbrough to recognize the Ray-Rays in his life and to understand how he had found himself in handcuffs in June. “I ended up getting caught up in Ray-Ray’s bad idea,” he said.
After his arrest, Yarbrough was referred to the job readiness program by the Public Defenders office. At first he thought, “Oh, another program.”
“At first I wasn’t interested,” he said. “I thought it was going to take up my time.”
But at the first class, Yarbrough realized he was wrong. “It was nothing like what I thought it would be,” he said. It was a place filled with “people I could related to.” Pretty soon, Yarbrough was coming to class a half-hour early.
Yarbrough’s mom, Tasha Sledd, said that the eight week-program has helped Yarbrough make better decisions about who he hangs out with. “Larry has really grown from an immature little boy into a responsible young man,” she said.
Weston said that Yarbrough personal background and run-in with the law is typical of participants in the program. “The program is designed for the most high-risk kids in the city,” he said. “Larry was hardcore in the streets.”
Weston said that Yarbrough has been transformed by the eight-week class. “A minute ago he was going to be locked up,” he said. “Now he’s in the house every night by 8:30.”
Yarbrough is one of three program participants who have already landed jobs. He said he had a five-minute interview earlier in the day on Thursday at McDonald’s in Cheshire. “I’m going to be taught how to run the register on Monday,” he said. That will be his 18th birthday, he said.
Larry’s five-minute interview at McDonald’s was the result of extensive lobbying by Weston, Yarbrough explained. “Tyrone called them every night,” he said. Weston said that Craig Holmes (pictured addressing the graduates), a job developer with the program, had also worked hard to get Yarbrough the job.
That extra lobbying was a new feature of the program this time, said Shirley West. Since some of the students have legal problems in their past, its necessary to have an adult and an organization to speak on their behalf to employers, who might otherwise be reluctant to hire them. “We could do the work [in class] all day long,” she said, but employers are not going to look twice at them without someone to say “just give them a chance.”
Yarbrough said he’s enrolled in classes at New Haven’s Adult and Continuing Education center on the Boulevard. He said he wants to be an engineer someday.