Mark This! Podcast, Episode 2, In2Work
Host: Heather Dotchel, Corporate Communications
Guests: Tim Barttrum, President and CEO of Aramark Correctional Services & Nicole McVaugh, Director of In2Work
Heather Dotchel (00:14):
It's time to Mark This, a podcast in which we peel back the corporate curtain to reveal the cool and innovative people, programs, and projects that are happening all over Aramark's varied lines of business. I'm Heather Dotchel. As a member of Aramark's communications team, I see and hear amazing things that are happening across our company every day. These remarkable initiatives happen because we have remarkable people behind them building opportunity, building innovation, and building community.
Today, we are exploring Aramark's Correctional Services business, specifically its In2Work program, which has provided a path for incarcerated individuals to gain nationally recognized educational certificates to help them reclaim their lives post-release. Tim Barttrum, President of Aramark Correctional Services, and Nicole McVaugh, Director of In2Work, are joining us to give insight into this innovative, difference making, and truly life-changing program. Welcome, and thanks to both of you for coming aboard today. Tim, let's start with you. Can you tell us about your time at Aramark and in correctional services?
Tim Barttrum (01:27):
Absolutely, Heather. Thank you. I started in 2010 with Aramark in a sales role. Most of my career with Aramark has been leading the sales team, and then two years ago, I had the pleasure of moving into the CEO and president's role of the corrections division.
Heather Dotchel (01:44):
Nicole, can you share with us how you became part of the In2Work program?
Absolutely, and thanks for having us today. I'm really excited to talk through In2Work. So I started back with Aramark in 2014, and I started in the leadership and training development department, and then was graciously offered the position to head up the In2Work program with the corrections line of business and have been doing that ever since.
Well, thanks. But while we're on the subject, can you elaborate on what exactly the In2Work program is and what it offers?
Nicole McVaugh (02:15):
The In2Work program is a vocational training that we offer to men and women who are impacted by the justice system and currently incarcerated. The purpose of the program is to teach our students how to function in a workplace setting, work as a team, which can lead to increased public safety, but most importantly teaches accountability and responsibility through our classroom and hands on training.
It also provides competent and confident students as they grow through our program and become graduates. As they are graduates and they are earning employment upon release, that is our goal, is so that they are successful in their re-entry journey.
What are the different paths, Nicole, that they can take in the In2Work program?
Nicole McVaugh (02:58):
In2Work, we have two different paths. Right now, we offer our In2Work food service program. That has a large focus on food safety. We focus conceptually on what it looks like to work inside an industrial kitchen and around exactly what food safety is and all the components leading up to the ServSafe certificate. We do offer the Management ServSafe certificate, so that's that five-year certificate from the National Restaurant Association, and that is the tangible part of the program. That's what we want these men and women to leave our program and leave the facility with, so they're taking these to employers on the outside and they're using that to earn gainful employment.
And then the other part of In2Work is our retail portion. So our retail portion of In2Work focuses a lot around warehousing and what it looks like to work inside of our commissaries. We take a phased approach to learning in both food service and retail, starting with very basic. So what does it look like to work inside our industry kitchen and commissary? We move to the management phase, which is phase two, and that is a bit more conceptual.
So what does it look like to work in a food service operation, a casual dining restaurant chain? And then on the retail side, more of the big box retailer, and then the third phase is that certification piece. So like I talked about, those tangible certificates. And on the retail side, we have partnered with the National Retail Federation Foundation and their RISE Up program, which is a nationally recognized certificate retailer such as Home Depot, Walmart, the Amazons of the world are using the RISE Up training to train their hourly associates that they're hiring on a daily basis. So our students are taking that certificate to these retailers, and they're using that for employment.
That's fantastic. Tim, as CEO of the corrections business, why is In2Work important to you? Why not just focus on serving food?
I get asked that question a lot, Heather. I think it goes back to my history in corrections. I've been in corrections over 30 years, and I've always had a passion for seeing people succeed that have made bad choices in their lives. I think that everyone deserves a second chance, and when I came to Aramark, it became very apparent to me watching the In2Work program operate in the corrections space that Aramark has a unique opportunity to touch several hundred thousand people each and every day, and to make an impact in the lives of these folks that are serving time or that are involved in the criminal justice system.
And we have a presence across the United States in the correctional justice market, and we have a unique ability and a skill set to help train folks and provide second chance employment opportunities. So we have a lot of passionate people in our business that really care about this. It's really become our mission statement in the corrections business is to make an impact in the lives of those we serve.
Nicole, you walked us through the program steps, how our students move through to gain the various educational certificates. Once they've graduated, once they've reached that point, how does this program make a difference? What effects do you see?
So I think that to answer that, in so many different ways. But one thing that comes directly to mind is that we want to be part of their re-entry story. So we don't want to just give them this training and shake their hand and tell them, "Job well done." Our program extends beyond that.
We offer internships, scholarships, as well as we talked about education and employment being the two factors that reduce recidivism the most. That employment piece and us being, and by us I mean Aramark, being involved in their re-entry story and their success post-release, and one way we're doing that is through offering employment to the graduates of our program.
While we haven't had comprehensive studies done around the outcomes of the program, we're in the process of building that capability with some partnerships, current partnerships, what I can tell you is that we hear consistently from the graduates of the program the impact that it's made on their lives and their opportunity for success outside of just completing the program.
It's finding employment, it's growing in those employment opportunities, and we can share several stories of success like that. I can tell you that in the state of Indiana, we were recognized by the National Governor's Association for the impact it had on the graduates of the program in the state of Indiana. And the data for that specific group showed a reduction in recidivism of about 32% compared to the state average. So those things are building blocks for us. We want to continue becoming a data driven program and making sure that the programs we're offering are driving success, but we hear it every day. We don't need data to tell us that. We see it in the lives of the people that we're working with.
And that's really great to hear because that's the end goal, making a difference. Tim, what are your long term goals for this program?
Well, look, obviously, we want to make an impact on the recidivism rates in the United States. We want to see fewer people incarcerated or coming back, being reincarcerated. But we also think there's an opportunity here for prevention and we're expanding our program to look at ways that we can provide opportunities prior to people becoming incarcerated to keep them from getting into the criminal justice system.
So we have a passion and a plan to try to take that to the next level in 2023 and beyond. So ultimate goals are that we can help make a positive impact and we can see folks really get back to being a successful part of their communities. And we operate in cities and communities all across the United States, and we want to be a good partner to those communities too.
So we want to help find employment opportunities. These folks live in those communities, the graduates live in those communities. So we're trying to build those local partnerships. At the end of the day, I'd love to say that it was 100% successful and that every single graduate never returned to the criminal justice system. That's probably not realistic, but if we can make any impact at all, it's well worth our time.
Nicole, can you talk a little bit about the scope of this program? How many lives have we touched in In2Work?
One of my favorite things to talk about actually. So today, we have a little over 6,500 graduates that have graduated from the In2Work retail and food service programs. And I checked this morning, we have about 1,760 current students enrolled in program and that's across 27 states. So the impact we're making from the West Coast to the East Coast is grand. And on top of that, we do have 208 programs running currently, and that's in our DOCs, municipals, and county jails.
That's absolutely incredible. And then how do we support all of these graduates? That's quite a few people. How do we support all of them after they graduate?
One of the largest impacts we make, and one of my favorite pieces is the personal side of In2Work. We do get to be a part of their re-entry story, like I talked about before. And there's a couple ways that we're doing that. First is through our In2Work scholarship. We do offer scholarships to our graduates post-release, whether that's to jump start their career, continue their education, further their education post-release, we do offer that to our graduates as well as one of my favorite subjects is their dependents.
Tim talked about breaking the cycle of incarceration, and that is our mission at Aramark Corrections. And one very unique way we're doing that is to offer scholarships to the graduates of our program. We are serving men and women who are incarcerated and they may not be able to provide for their families as they would like to because of their incarceration.
And one way that they can do that is through the IN2(the)Future scholarship. And because they've graduated our In2Work program, their children and dependents have the opportunity to continue or start their education through the scholarship. Just this year, we've awarded five IN2(the)Future scholarships, and I've been in contact personally with all five recipients and the impact that it's making on their lives, they're being able to... or showing a way that they haven't been able to in the past.
There's many different avenues that the IN2(the)Future scholarship is making that impact. We have a couple who are actually going to four-year schools. One of the recipients actually just made the football team at his college and he was very, very happy about that. But it's those personalized stories that I'm able to hear at this point. And now, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's on a daily basis. I'm hearing these stories from our graduates, from the dependents of our graduates on a daily basis of the impact that the program is making in their lives.
I love that the scholarships are offered not only to the graduates, but to their dependents. It's that ever-expanding step in scope of the program that I think excites all of us when we're working through it. What about support in jobs after graduation and then post-release for our students?
As the graduates of our program are returning to their communities and returning home, employment is one of the biggest hurdles that they have to face with a criminal conviction or a felony in their background. I'm proud to say, and I hope Aramark is proud to say that we are a second chance employer and we are offering opportunities to the graduates of our In2Work program as they're returning home.
We have a couple different ways that they can contact and reach out to both the In2Work team and Aramark. The first is through our In2Work text code, so we utilize Ally, the virtual job coach, we provide our graduates with an In2Work text code that they can use on any smart device. They text that, they enter their information, where they're located, what job they're looking for, and the jobs pre-populate right there in front of them. They can click to apply.
There's a chat to apply feature, which is very helpful for a lot of people who may have never applied to a job this way before. So those types of opportunities and the ease of employment and applying for employment through Ally, where we've seen a lot of success. And the second way I mentioned is really to reach out to us directly. I think that by the graduates using the In2Work team as a resource, we're able to really go to bat for them internally and say, "Hey, hiring team, this person, yes, will come back with a pre-adverse on their background, but while they were there, they used In2Work to better their situation."
And I really applaud our adjudication and our HR teams for taking the opportunity to speak individually to each of our graduates. They provide a phone number for our graduates to call and explain, and I can't thank our partners and adjudication enough for that opportunity for the In2Work graduates.
I love hearing about all of that. Tim, do you have a favorite outcome story from In2Work that you could share?
Yeah, Heather. I actually have about five favorite stories, but I'll keep it to just a couple. When I think about a story that made an impact on me or an experience that made an impact on me relative to In2Work, I was at an In2Work graduation in Michigan at an account that we operate, and I had a chance to meet the graduates of the program prior to the ceremony.
And one of the individuals there scored out 100% on her ServSafe certification and was so excited. That's a really amazing accomplishment. That's tough to do, and we went through the graduation ceremony and she happened to be the keynote speaker for the graduation ceremony. There were members from the community, local community that were present. She shared with the audience that she would not be graduating the program and leaving the jail, but actually would be moving into the Department of Corrections to serve a sentence.
And that the reason she had put forth so much effort in the In2Work program and wanted to graduate the program was because she wanted to demonstrate that she could be successful for her children. I think that those kinds of stories really validate what we do each and every day, and I think about people that have graduated the program.
There's a gentleman out of the state of Indiana that graduated the program, was employed through a partnership with one of our healthcare partners, and he has since improved his performance and was actually promoted and is doing a great job. He's leading others in his new role. To just know that our people had a part in making that kind of an impact really again, validates the reasons why we focus on this in our business.
Nicole, do you have a favorite outcome or two that you could also share?
Nicole McVaugh (17:00):
That's a tough question, Heather, because there's so many. And I would love to share all of them, but I know we're on a timeframe here. One that sticks out I think most to me would be most recently from a graduate of our fellowship program in the state of Ohio. We've partnered with Ohio DRC to create an expansion of the In2Work program. So our graduates have the opportunity to remain working and alongside of our Aramark food service professionals to develop more.
And post-release, the DRC is allowing us to hire the graduates of our program back into the DRC locations to continue their careers with Aramark. And most recently, we had a graduate, she was released from the women's prison, she was an In2Work student, an In2Work fellow, and then hired at the Northeast Reintegration Center. From there, she was very successful, and recently she was promoted to manager at another DRC location.
So the success that she is having and the impact she's making, not only on our operations, but she's able to mentor and coach the current In2Work students that are at the location where she's a manager. I think that's where we're able to really see the program come full circle.
Heather Dotchel (18:14):
Well, I could certainly listen to these stories all day. It's these pieces where you realize that these kinds of programs really do make all the difference in the lives of others. So, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Want to know more about Aramark's In2Work program? Visit our newsroom on aramark.com to access more information.
I'd like to offer a huge thank you to our guests today. Tim Barttrum, President of Aramark Correctional Services, and Nicole McVaugh, Director of the In2Work program, and I'd like to thank our listeners for tuning into Mark This.
