y McKenzie Jackson | California Black Media
A new initiative launching in early 2026 aims to help Black women across Southern California build careers, break job barriers, and reclaim economic power.
The California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute is set to give Black women who are unemployed, underemployed, or rebuilding their lives after incarceration an opportunity to receive free career development support in their SheWorks California workforce development program, running from Jan. 24 to May 16 at Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan’s community resource center in Long Beach.
California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute (CBWCEI) President and CEO Kellie Todd Griffin said SheWorks California is a program “designed for Black women, by Black women,” which gives participants the tools to train for a career, enter the workforce and obtain economic mobility.
“Our goal is to have our women — if they want to be in health care and want to get their LVN [Licensed Vocational Nurse] license or their pharmaceutical license, for example — when they finish our program, we will transition them into a training program,” she explained. “Then we have another pathway for our women — those who want to be job-ready. We transfer them into jobs with our partners and help them navigate the hiring process.”
Enrollees in the Carson-based nonprofit organization’s workforce initiative will receive career coaching, interview prep, resume development, mentorship and peer support from Black women professionals, and training in digital skills, technology, and leadership in once-a-month group trainings and individual sessions catered to their needs.
The SheWorks California curriculum will also include financial literacy lessons, wellness resources to promote long-term stability, access to hiring employers committed to career advancement, and connections with partner organizations that have other training and social services.
Enrollees will receive three monetary credits throughout the five-month training along with allowances for childcare and taking an Uber ride to training, if needed, said Griffin.
“We provide every person in our program a stipend to attend the program,” she added. “We want to avoid the ‘Oh I don’t have anybody to watch my kid. I can’t go to my interview.’ We try to remove all of that by giving them stipends. Our goal is for them to be successful.”
The Institute aims to have 30 women registered for the program by the end of December.
Griffin, a committed advocate, who strives to amplify the voices and power of Black women, said the program is for Black women navigating employment instability.
“We recognize those who have been unemployed, can be chronically unemployed — meaning they are in programs where they are incentivized to not get employment, so we wanted to create a program with built-in incentives,” Griffin stated. “The underemployed have never had the time or ability to — because of personal responsibilities, livelihoods, family members, children — move up or out of something like retail to make a living for themselves. Our goal is to dismantle the barriers that stop Black women from pursuing the careers they deserve.”
The California job market, Griffin explained, isn’t easy for Black women, who often face a number of obstacles that limit career mobility including workplace discrimination and education requirements such as employers requiring employees to have a bachelor’s degree but only a quarter of Black women in the state have one.
“So, you have three quarters of Black women who are of working age unable to obtain jobs with fair pay or benefits,” Griffin said. “That instability makes it hard for Black women to take care of their families or loved ones.”
Griffin said Black women have plenty of mentorship at work, but not enough sponsorship.
“Sponsorships are people, who sing your praises when you are not in the room,” she said. “They are the ones making sure you are in meetings and making sure you are part of opportunities you don’t know exist. We will actually teach our participants in this program how to identify sponsors in your career — and they may not look like us.”
The first-time initiative is beginning in the wake of a reported 300,000 Black women leaving the U.S. workforce between February and April, according to July data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Additionally, while the national unemployment rate is 4.3%, the average among Black women was an elevated 6.7% in August.
Nationally, Black women are overrepresented in public sector jobs — so massive cuts to the federal workforce by the Trump administration this year likely contributed to the number of unemployed Black women, according to experts.
NAACP Director for Opportunity, Race, and Justice Kiesha Bross said in a media release ahead of an October virtual career fair that Black women had been the backbone of nonprofit and the federal workforce.
“When they are disproportionately impacted by cuts and layoffs, entire communities feel that loss,” she said.
Griffin added that Black women’s absence from the workforce has ripple effects.
“The impact of these government cuts and job layoffs are going to hit the Black community hard because Black women are homeowners,” she said. “We support our nonprofits at higher levels, political donations.”
The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor partially funds SheWorks California. Program sessions will be hosted at Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan community resource centers in Inglewood, Long Beach, and South Los Angeles in the spring.
Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan’s Medi-Cal Growth and Community Engagement Vice President Jennifer Schirmer said the organization believes in initiatives that help women lead happier and healthier lives.
“The SheWorks program from the California Black Women’s Collective Empowerment Institute is a powerful example of that,” she said. “By hosting the SheWorks program at the community resource centers we jointly operate with L.A. Care Health Plan, we’re ensuring that vital resources — such as employment support and confidence-building tools — are accessible to women right in their own neighborhoods.”
Griffin said her organization plans to stay focused on the program’s mission.
“Be open to the opportunity,” she said. “Be open to being pushed. Be open to making sure you believe in your brilliance, and you know you have something to offer — something to transfer wherever you go because Black women have a unique ability to be able to see every perspective. That is our superpower.”
For more information or to register for SheWorks visit SheWorks | CA Black Women’s Collective.
