Blog

Even highly experienced jobseekers can benefit from working with career counselors at JCFS Chicago. Each person’s path to employment is unique, and everyone needs different kinds of support.

“Our goal is to empower them to find their next adventure,” said Career Counselor Marcy Miller. “We’re here to support them through that process, whatever that looks like.”

When Rivka was a high school senior at JCFS Chicago’s Knapp School & Yeshiva, she worked with a JCFS employment specialist to plan for her future.

My name is Tema Zeldes-Roth, and I am really excited to be joining Response for Teens as a Parent & Guardian Outreach Coordinator.

Author, speaker, advocate, lawyer, and clinician Jason B. Rosenthal recently spoke to an audience of more than 100 people at a JCFS program hosted by Congregation B’nai Jehoshua Beth Elohim in Deerfield and generously sponsored by the Lauri S. Bauer Foundation for Sudden Loss. Drawing from his own experience with loss and healing, Jason offered powerful lessons about love, grief, and resilience.

When Response for Teens Lead Community Educator Brittany Sue Hines recognized that youth gambling was becoming an increasing concern in the community, she developed a Youth Problem Gambling Prevention curriculum. She recently tailored that program to present it to high school-aged pre-professional soccer players at the Chicago Fire Academy.

JCFS Chicago expanded its unique Synagogue Community Partnership (SCP) to include 13 synagogues when it recently added two northwest suburban congregations (with one more in the works). Grant funding helps to underwrite a liaison from JCFS’ Jewish Community Services to work with the synagogues’ clergy, staff and congregants, as well help with programming.

A few months into her new marketing role, Kim sent an email to her JVS Career Counselor Sandra Saltzman, thanking her for her guidance, encouragement and expertise during her 1.5-year job search.

JCFS Chicago is one of six agencies that are partners in the Strategic Workforce Opportunity Collaborative (SWOC). This collaborative of trusted workforce professionals focuses on increasing employment opportunities for Chicagoland individuals with disabilities, and just as important, assisting employers in hiring qualified, pre-screened candidates.

Parenting is rarely a solo act. We rely on carpools, group chats, and friends who drop off dinner and say, “You’ve got this.”

In Jewish life, we call that kehillah - community that shows up not just when things are easy, but when they’re real. For foster and adoptive families, that kind of support isn’t just nice to have, it’s necessary.

Some Knapp School & Yeshiva students are getting a taste of working in the food service industry—right at their school. The school lunch cart operates twice a week, and six to eight students regularly help with everything from taking orders and shopping for ingredients, to cooking and delivering the food.