Although she’s well aware of CareerSource’s mission from the time she spent as a career center manager for CareerSource Brevard Flagler Volusia, Raven McGhee has since settled into her new role as Mobile Access Points (MAP) Manager since coming on board in April.
McGhee definitely doesn’t miss the commute that she endured during her previous job, which saw her driving between Jacksonville and Palm Coast to work each day.
Now, she lives just a few minutes away from the Gateway Career Center: with commutes out to libraries, community centers, churches, apartment complexes and other locations as the MAP team brings its ‘portable career center’ services to various places in the community.
Over the last two months, the MAP Team has helped job seekers throughout the region at locations including Hastings Library, Victory Pointe, Vocational Rehabilitation, Ponte Vedra Beach Library and Baker Correctional Facility.
McGhee says that while there was no overlap between herself and former MAP Manager Dwaine Sweet, who retired at the first of the year, she did meet him once…and credits him with “leaving me with a great team.”
And, with her new job, a much easier commute.
“When this opportunity came up here, I applied and was happy that you all liked me to choose me for the role,” she said.
McGhee, who is originally from Staten Island, New York, moved to Jacksonville in 2020 to be closer to her immediate family, her father and brothers, who already lived in the area.
She was hired by CareerSource Flagler Volusia soon after and, a few months following the merger of the Brevard division (to become CareerSource Brevard Flagler Volusia), she was promoted to career center manager. She served in that role for about a year and a half.
“Really, these are the same services I provided before, but with outreach added…we bring CareerSource Northeast Florida to the community who can’t visit our centers because they face certain barriers,” she said.
Created in 2009 to act as an extension of the career centers, the MAP Team provides use of laptops, 3G internet access to help job seekers target their resumes, locate potential employers and identify workshops covering a variety of work topics.
During the MAP Team’s June visit at Charles Webb Wesconnett Regional Library on 103rd Street in west Jacksonville, many people were coming in and meeting with McGhee, along with workforce services representative Donald Silvels, during their four-hour stay.
“A lot of people are meeting with us to go over career goals, but we help the majority of them with job searches and providing resume assistance,” she said. “This is a pretty busy location for us. The customers here usually meet us in the parking lot and say, ‘great, you are here today…we need you,’ and we’ll say, ‘alright give us a second to set up.’ ”
For Silvels, working with the MAP Team carries a bit of déjà vu — he originally joined CareerSource NEFL on the team many years ago and returned to it earlier this year.
“I miss my previous job, but the familiarity really makes it easy,” he said. “It’s just like it was before, and it is interesting to get out of the office and see different areas of the city that I normally wouldn’t frequent, meeting people I normally wouldn’t meet and, of course, helping them with their issues and finding employment.”
In addition to visits to libraries and community centers around the region, the MAP Team continues to support the reentry program for those who have been justice-involved and are coming out of prison – providing information and resources to assist them in achieving their goals to find employment.
McGhee had never visited a correctional facility before, and the first visit was intimidating – especially being a female.
“It’s very overwhelming at first, but when you’re in there with them and you see that they’re normal folks who made a mistake,” she said. “They’re really looking to better themselves when they come out into society again. It’s very rewarding to know we’re able to help them, especially with the mock interviewing, which is a blast.”
McGhee says she’s had some satisfying moments, including a job seeker she helped to find a position at a correctional facility and, currently, assisting a 70-year-old man who is trying to find a job.
“He lost his wife two years ago and he’s actively looking for employment…he’s a go-getter who really has a lot of energy,” she said. “We’ve connected him with a couple of potential employers, and while he hasn’t nailed anything down yet, he’s had an interview and that’s giving him the motivation to keep trying. That wouldn’t be happening if he hadn’t turned to us for help.”
In her new role, McGhee is actively promoting the MAP Team and looking for new places to visit in the region.
“I want the community to know they don’t have to limit themselves to a visit to a career center and to look at our website calendar to find out where we are each week,” she said. “I think a lot of people overlook our website and the calendar of events, and that we can offer the one-on-one experience they have at a career center. And, if someone would like us to come out to their church, community center or wherever, I definitely encourage them to connect with us.”
In the meantime, in addition to their existing outreach, McGhee is also working to reconnect with Better Together – a nonprofit organization in Northeast Florida that supports families facing crises like unemployment, homelessness, or medical emergencies, and helps to prevent children from entering the foster care system.
“I would like to reestablish a partnership with them, but I’ve only been here a little over a month,” she said. “Give me a quarter or two and I’ll probably have more information on that.”
Photo Caption: Workforce Representative Donald Silvels and MAP Manager Raven McGhee during the team’s June visit to Charles Webb Wesconnett Regional Library in west Jacksonville – among many locations throughout the region where the team brings career center services directly to the public.