NAACP Million Jobs Campaign
The Connecticut NAACP is bringing job training in healthcare to formerly incarcerated individuals through local partnerships with a 76% retention rate.
As the President of the Connecticut State Conference of the NAACP, part of the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organizations, Scot Esdaile is dedicated to advancing opportunities for marginalized communities. For formerly incarcerated men – particularly people of color – accessing job opportunities can be particularly challenging, which increases the risk – and societal cost – of recidivism. Nationwide, the recidivism rate – the percentage of released inmates who return to prison within five years – hovers near seventy percent.
It’s an issue that Esdaile, who also serves as Criminal Justice Chair for the National NAACP, has been working to address. The social and economic impacts are enormous for the United States, which boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world. At any given time, there are more 2 million people in the U.S. criminal justice system, with Black Americans jailed at five times the rate of whites, according to The Sentencing Project, a national research and advocacy group for prison reform.
Esdaile says that while many programs provide job training to people returning to the community from prison, the lack of employer partnerships – and the stigma of a criminal record – often make finding and keeping employment a tremendous challenge. According to the Prison Policy Institute, formerly incarcerated Black men face unemployment rates that are more than four times that of Black non-offenders (35% vs 7.7%).
To address this complex problem, the Connecticut NAACP launched the Million Jobs Campaign in 2020. Under Esdaile’s leadership – and with multi-year funding support from The Community Foundation of Greater New Haven – the organization designed a program to train formerly incarcerated state residents and, through partnership, place them in entry-level roles with area employers. The program also serves those who have an arrest on their record but didn’t serve time. The program was modeled after a successful reentry program at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.
“I wanted to understand the most effective programs in the country for [helping] formerly incarcerated individuals,” Esdaile said. “Often times with reentry programs, there’s a lot of training and money invested, but not a lot of results.” At Johns Hopkins, he learned that the hospital embraced being part of the solution. It set aside ten percent of their entry-level roles for people with a history of incarceration. Esdaile visited and met with Johns Hopkins’ CEO, its head of HR and employees at all levels. He returned to Connecticut convinced that his organization could replicate the success experienced in Maryland, starting with a partnership with the Connecticut Hospital Association, which oversees twenty-seven hospitals statewide.
To launch the initiative, the Connecticut NAACP worked closely with Yale New Haven Hospital, which has agreed to set aside five percent of jobs for former inmates. Roles range from entry-level jobs like patient transport and cooks to more advanced positions such as laboratory technicians and coders.
“In many urban areas, hospitals are the largest employer and a major economic engine,” Esdaile said. “So it made sense to start with the healthcare system.”
The Connecticut NAACP also works closely with local chambers of commerce, grassroots community organizations, and the state’s workforce development boards. Last year, the NAACP placed one hundred formerly incarcerated individuals in jobs in New Haven.
“With an average salary of $30,000, that generated $3 million in economic impact,” Esdaile said.
The curriculum-based program was developed in collaboration with local healthcare HR directors. It helps participants develop communications and technology skills, prepare for an interview, and learn how to dress appropriately for the workforce. Everyone who completes the program is guaranteed a job interview. Esdaile estimates that roughly twenty percent of participants are proficient in required skills, including the ability to communicate effectively. The middle fifty percent, he says, are lower-skilled, but want to be contributing members of society. The bottom thirty percent typically have very significant needs – including addiction, trauma, homelessness, and mental health issues – that require greater services than the NAACP’s program can accommodate.
It’s an issue that Esdaile, who also serves as Criminal Justice Chair for the National NAACP, has been working to address. The social and economic impacts are enormous for the United States, which boasts the highest incarceration rate in the world. At any given time, there are more than 2 million people in the U.S. criminal justice system, with Black Americans jailed at five times the rate of whites, according to The Sentencing Project, a national research and advocacy group for prison reform.
Esdaile says that while many programs provide job training to people returning to the community from prison, the lack of employer partnerships – and the stigma of a criminal record – often make finding and keeping employment a tremendous challenge. According to the Prison Policy Institute, formerly incarcerated Black men face unemployment rates that are more than four times that of Black non-offenders (35% vs 7.7%).
To address this complex problem, the Connecticut NAACP launched the Million Jobs Campaign in 2020. Under Esdaile’s leadership – and with multi-year funding support from the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven – the organization designed a program to train formerly incarcerated state residents and, through partnership, place them in entry-level roles with area employers. The program also serves those who have an arrest on their record but didn’t serve time. The program was modeled after a successful reentry program at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD.
“I wanted to understand the most effective programs in the country for [helping] formerly incarcerated individuals,” Esdaile said. “Often times with reentry programs, there’s a lot of training and money invested, but not a lot of results.” At Johns Hopkins, he learned that the hospital embraced being part of the solution. It set aside ten percent of their entry-level roles for people with a history of incarceration. Esdaile visited and met with Johns Hopkins’ CEO, its head of HR and employees at all levels. He returned to Connecticut convinced that his organization could replicate the success experienced in Maryland, starting with a partnership with the Connecticut Hospital Association, which oversees twenty-seven hospitals statewide.
To launch the initiative, the Connecticut NAACP worked closely with Yale New Haven Hospital, which has agreed to set aside five percent of jobs for former inmates. Roles range from entry-level jobs like patient transport and cooks to more advanced positions such as laboratory technicians and coders.
“In many urban areas, hospitals are the largest employer and a major economic engine,” Esdaile said. “So, it made sense to start with the healthcare system.”
The Connecticut NAACP also works closely with local chambers of commerce, grassroots community organizations, and the state’s workforce development boards. Last year, the NAACP placed one hundred formerly incarcerated individuals in jobs in New Haven.
“With an average salary of $30,000,” Esdaile said. “That generated $3 million in economic impact.”
The curriculum-based program was developed in collaboration with local healthcare HR directors. It helps participants develop communications and technology skills, prepare for an interview and learn how to dress appropriately for the workforce. Everyone who completes the program is guaranteed a job interview. Esdaile estimates that roughly twenty percent of participants are proficient in required skills, including the ability to communicate effectively. The middle fifty percent, he says, are lower-skilled, but want to be contributing members of society. The bottom thirty percent typically have very significant needs – including addiction, trauma, homelessness, and mental health issues – that require greater services than the NAACP’s program can accommodate.
To date, the program – which measures jobs placement and retention as its key performance indicators – has placed 26% of its applicants in full-time jobs and says more than 76% of its placements have retained their job. Esdaile would like to double the placement rate to 50% in the coming three years and is slowly expanding the program across the state and its partnerships beyond healthcare. In December, Esdaile began talks with the U.S. Navy and Groton-based Electric Boat to forge new partnerships in the defense industry. He’s also hoping to add opportunities in manufacturing, construction trades, and retail.
In March of last year, the NAACP expanded the campaign to Hartford and created 17 job placements in partnership with the Hartford Healthcare system. Other priority communities include Bridgeport, Waterbury and New London. Over the next three years, Esdaile hopes the Million Jobs campaign extends into smaller Connecticut cities like Stamford and New Britain and into neighboring Northeastern states, before growing nationally.
“The NAACP has more than 2,200 branches nationwide,” Esdaile said. “If we create just one hundred jobs annually per location, over a five-year period, that’s more than 1 million jobs for former inmates.”
He’s optimistic the NAACP can hit that goal as addressing systemic injustice has become a greater focus of business and industry. “A lot more people have an open ear about how to deal with individuals who have been impacted by the criminal justice system,” Esdaile said.
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To date, the program – which measures jobs placement and retention as its key performance indicators – has placed 26% of its applicants in full-time jobs and says more than 76% of its placements have retained their job. Esdaile would like to double the placement rate to 50% in the coming three years and is slowly expanding the program across the state and its partnerships beyond healthcare. In December, Esdaile began talks with the U.S. Navy and Groton-based Electric Boat to forge new partnerships in the defense industry. He’s also hoping to add opportunities in manufacturing, construction trades, and retail.
In March of last year, the NAACP expanded the campaign to Hartford and created 17 job placements in partnership with the Hartford Healthcare system. Other priority communities include Bridgeport, Waterbury, and New London. Over the next three years, Esdaile hopes the Million Jobs campaign extends into smaller Connecticut cities like Stamford and New Britain and into neighboring Northeastern states, before growing nationally.
“The NAACP has more than 2,200 branches nationwide,” Esdaile said. “If we create just one hundred jobs annually per location, over a five-year period, that’s more than 1 million jobs for former inmates.”
He’s optimistic the NAACP can hit that goal as addressing systemic injustice has become a greater focus of business and industry. “A lot more people have an open ear about how to deal with individuals who have been impacted by the criminal justice system,” Esdaile said.
