Career fair gives Echo Glen youths glimpse of better life

Published 2:00 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SNOQUALMIE – Everyone deserves a second chance.

That idea also applies to juvenile offenders at Echo Glen Children’s Center near Snoqualmie. Last week, the rehabilitation facility hosted its sixth annual career fair, which gave youths the chance to see that there is a future for them beyond the center’s locked gates.

Echo Glen’s 205 youths on Aug. 1 listened to presentations from an array of companies and organizations, including Wal-Mart, Fred Meyer, the Army, United Parcel Service, Baugh Construction and Gene Juarez Salons and Spas.

Patti Berntsen, associate superintendent at Echo Glen, said the career fair gives the kids, who range in age from 10 to 20 and have been convicted on charges such as murder, robbery, rape and assault, “a sense of hope.”

“For these kids, it’s a way out,” she said. “Some of them have been living some pretty horrendous lives.”

There are obstacles, though. Some youths convicted of rape or sex-offense charges will be limited in the positions for which they can apply. And then there’s the question found on so many job applications: “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”

Berntsen said if they are honest, they have no choice but to answer in the affirmative. But they can help themselves by not returning to crime once their stay at Echo Glen is over.

“It takes some tenacity, and it takes some patience, and it takes keeping a clean record,” Berntsen said.

Tracey Lowrey, community involvement coordinator for the Wal-Mart store in Chehalis, said she was spending the day at Echo Glen “to let [the youths] know that businesses will hire them, even though they’ve had a rough start.”

“When they come out of here, they come out with a clean slate as far as Wal-Mart is concerned,” she said.

Youth offenders who are sent to rehabilitation facilities like Echo Glen are often better employees than typical high-school students, Lowrey added, because they have a large support system to help them should they have any problems readjusting to life outside the center.

And they understand all-too-well the consequences of their actions.

“They don’t want to go back, so theyOre far more careful in what they do,” she said.

Because of the supervision offenders have at youth rehabilitation facilities, Lowrey said in many instances they take direction better than other teen-agers.

“They’re actually more mature, for the most part, because they’re used to having people give them guidance,” she said.

In a small classroom, a group of seven youths and their teacher listened to Gene Juarez instructor Maryann Brathwaite explain the different job opportunities in the field of cosmetology.

She showed them pictures of models sporting intricate hair designs, prompting one girl with experience cutting hair and aspirations of attending cosmetology school to exclaim, “We didn’t give people anything near as crazy as what you’ve got in those books!”

After the combined laughter subsided, Brathwaite said it takes 11 months for students to complete Gene Juarez’s cosmetology instruction, and after graduating, they could expect to make about $38,000 their first year. She added that the salon’s top stylists earn as much as $125 a haircut, a number that made the class gasp.

Berntsen said that’s a future most Echo Glen youths dream of having. And the career fair is one step in making the dream a reality.

“These kids have made poor decisions at a young age. This is a second chance for them,” she said.