CETA: Do Women Benefit?

By Amy Schuman

"Why bother with CETA?"; everyone asks, "hasn't it been eliminated by Reagan?"

Certainly, CETA has been drastically cut. In Cleveland, we have dropped from a $33 million budget in Fiscal Year 1981 to a mere $13 million in Fiscal Year 1982. Still, $13 million dollars is a very significant sum of money. If carefully utilized, it could provide job training opportunities for many

women.

CETA was specifically charged with providing skill training and job placement for "significant segments" of the population. These significant segments are the chronically unemployed or underemployed, such as displaced homemakers, minorities, the disabled, welfare recipients, and women. Further, all CETA programs, to the max-. imum extent feasible are required to address the problem of occupational sex stereotyping. In planning its program activities, CETA shall: "Recruit for and encourage female entry, through such means as training, into occupations with skill shortages where women represent less than 25% of the labor force.' This objective was established in an effort to place

mendations will be utilized by CETA as they plan their 1982 program, and the distribution of the $13 million available to them.

Highlights of our recommendations include the following:

Planning more effective CETA-funded programs requires:

1) Better record-keeping; to date there is no available information on placement by sex, wage rate, and occupation. The task force requested these records be kept in 1982 to assess the impact of CETA-funded programs on women.

2) More realistic goal setting; the underrepresentation of women in labor market/unemployment statistics must be taken into account when making projections for the number of women to be served by CETA.

3) The commitment to serve women must be incorporated in CETA's method of reviewing and awarding grants.

Implementing CETA-funded programs that serve women requires:

1) Recruitment of an adequate number of women.

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This could be facilitated by expanded information linkages with women's support groups and neighborhood organizations/institutions, and the preparation of usable and understandable materials that provide information on support services, nontraditional (better paying) training opportunities, stipends and the CETA intake process.

2) Intake and assessment procedures that minimize sex-stereotyping should include client orientation to all occupations available prior to a full battery of vocational/aptitude testing, and a discussion of nontraditional as well as traditional jobs including pay scales, training, and placement assistance available.

3) Referral of women to jobs and training opportunities with the goals established for women's participation in CETA-funded programs.

The public comment period on the City of Cleveland's CETA plan for Fiscal Year 1982 runs through September. The current plan has significant gaps in its planned service to women. For further information on how you can work with the Women's Task Force to modify Cleveland's CETA plan, call Amy Schuman at WomenSpace, 696-6967.

women in higher paying, more highly skilled jobs, Rape Crisis Center Seeks Volunteers

such as office machine repair, building maintenance,

etc.

To assist CETA in achieving these goals, a Task Force on Employment Opportunities for Women was established to review the Cleveland CETA program plans and activities. The Task Force is composed primarily of women in social service agencies, many of them working in CETA-funded programs.

Just recently, the Women's Task Force issued a set of recommedations to assist the Cleveland CETA program to become more responsive to the needs of women in Cleveland. Hopefully, many of our recom-

CWC: Divorce Data

Cleveland Women's Counsel (CWC) was awarded $18,000 by The Cleveland Foundation to work with the Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court on the development of educational programs aimed at divorcing parties and professionals, and a statistical record-keeping system for the Domestic Relations Court.

CWC intends to develop educational programs that will provide information: 1. to divorcing parties, enabling them to prepare for their futures realistically and understand more about the divorce process; and 2. to social service agencies, enabling them to determine the impact of divorce on their institutions and better to counsel their clientele.

"Last year almost 8,700 couples or 17,400 men and women were divorced in Cuyahoga County. The impact of these divorces on the community, in terms of dealing with the financial and emotional needs of the divorced parties and their children, is overwhelming," says Cinthia Schuman, Executive Director of CWC. "For this reason, it is essential that persons contemplating or undergoing divorce, as well as social service professionals, understand more about the divorce process and its consequences.

The project is a follow-up to Divorce Awards and Outcomes: A Study of Pattern and Change in Cuyahoga County, Ohio 1965-1978, a research study completed in April, 1981. It provides information on the nature of child support and alimony awards, child custody decisions, and decisions regarding the division of property.

CWC is a research and advocacy organization dealing with divorce and its legal and economic consequences. For futher information contact CWC at 321-8587.

By Pia Calabretta

The Cleveland Rape Crisis Center depends on a volunteer staff of both sexes. The next volunteer

training session schedule is September 15, 17, 22, 24, 29 and October 1 from 6:30, to 9:30 p.m. at the YWCA, 3201 Euclid Avenue. Call the CRCC at 391-3912 to reserve your place.

CRCC's volunteer credo is to give non-judgmental peer support to victims of rape and other sex-related assaults, their families and loved ones. CRCC maintains a 24-hour hotline where trained volunteers and paid staff give counsel and support. Hospital ad-

vocates are also available to go into hospital emergency rooms with victims."

Even where the rape victim is not beaten or similarly injured; CRCC advises her/him to go to a hospital emergency room or private physician as soon as possible after the attack. Reports of sexually transmitted diseases from rape are on the increase, and the rape victim should be concerned for her/his health. Unfortunately, however, the victim can be further traumatized by the very nature of the necessary examination; thus a CRCC volunteer at the hospital acts as a friend and advocate for the victim's rights in the hospital setting.

Besides these important functions, CRCC uses its volunteer staff in educational programs such as training seminars for grand juries, where we are seeing more indictments returned as a direct result of this educational process.

The strength of the CRCC is its volunteers. CRCC needs the talents and energies of all concerned people in its battle against the obscenity of rape.

This Is Police Protection?

By Loretta Feller

AT 9:30 one evening last March, Wanda Jacobs clocked out of her second shift keypunch job at the Coca Cola Company to go home. Her car had broken down, so she walked from Coca Cola at 37th and Carnegie to 40th and Euclid to wait for a bus. Shortly after arriving at the bus stop, she saw a police car crossing 40th Street. It made a U-turn and parked in front of her. A few moments later, one of the officers beckoned to her through the window. Wanda hesitated, so he rolled down the window and yelled, "I said come here, damn it!"

"I was scared," said Wanda, "but I went over. There were two policemen in the car. One said to me, 'What are you trying to do, black bitch, turn tricks?""'

"I turned and went back to the bus stop, so the officer [Russell Johnson] got out, took me by the arm, and forced me into the car. He said, ‘If you don't do what we want you to do, and that's have fun with us, we're taking you to jail.

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"I told them to take me to jail then. They said I was in the right vicinity for prostitution. On the way in, they kept trying to decide what to charge me with.

When we got to the Justice Center, about 20 minutes after I left work, I was booked for intoxication and disorderly conduct. I called my supervisor at Coca Cola and he came in to have me released around midnight."

Wanda asked for a sobriety test at the Justice Center, but was refused. She was told sobriety tests were used only when accidents were involved. Officer Johnson admitted at Wanda's trial that he did not smell alcohol on her breath. Rather, he said, he arrested her for her own protection. He could not say why he thought she needed protection, or from whom.

Harry Dworkin, Wanda's attorney, noted that the law carries no provision for this type of "protection". "A person either violates a law or they don't," he said.

At her April 16 trial, Wanda produced a copy of her sign-out sheet at Coca Cola, which proved she was arrested about ten minutes after leaving work. Judge Charles Fleming found her not guilty of the charges. Since then, Wanda has filed false arrest charges in federal district court against the two officers. The trial of that case has been set for January.

18! desetember

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