Climb Wyoming Growing In Casper

It's been twenty five years since Climb Wyoming  began offering employment training  to low income single moms. The program's  success means they're expanding.

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Lesha Thorvaldsen, Climb Wyoming Program Director in Casper, says Climb has been expanding locally thanks to great community support and she says this Spring they'll move to a larger facility. Climb Wyoming provides some classes out of the current Poplar street location along with life skills training, but demand for the program is out pacing what they can do.  So with a move, she says, they hope to  double their offering...

"So in order to do that we need to have two class rooms and we need to have more office space. Fortunately we're growing out of the area we are in so we'll be moving early summer."

A bigger space means they can expand from three programs a year to five. Climb Wyoming offers job skills training that includes office and health care careers as well as non-traditional training in welding and short haul truck driving. The main idea is to get single female bread winners into a jobs that pay enough to support a family.

The expansion also brings additional staffing. Thorvaldsen says that's, in part,  to ensure they can offer counseling and one on one support to participants.

"The mental health model that we work with is all based on relationships with the women. And in order to have those healthy safe relationships for those women that's why we hired a second set of staff.  The programs will work along side of each other and run fluidly with separate staff."

K2 Radio's Report to Wyoming will feature an extended look at the Climb Wyoming Program. That program runs later this month.