WHO WE ARE

The First Occupational Center of New Jersey, founded in 1954, is the state's oldest and largest vocational training and job placement agency. It is a not-for-profit, tax-exempt agency with an entrepreneurial approach to putting people to work to gain self-sufficiency and independence: It aggressively seeks out work for its people to do. As a result, although it once relied on government grants for 70 percent of its operating revenues, it has now turned that around, earning more than 70 percent of its budget by its own efforts.

WHO IS BEING SERVED

Each year the Center helps more than 1,000 New Jersey people succeed in the world of employment despite developmental disabilities, psychiatric disorders or other problems. Among its clients are senior citizens, the visually and hearing impaired, ex-offenders, chronically unemployed or welfare dependent.

WHAT WE DO

The Center's services include vocational evaluation and assessment, training, counseling, job placement, job coaching, education, advocacy and referral. It provides a sheltered workshop for those who need it, supported employment programs to help clients succeed at competitive jobs in the community, and a variety of educational programs. Some of these seek to improve reading and math skills, along with functional skills for independent living. Others provide specific vocational instruction leading to jobs as home health aides, commercial truck or bus drivers or operators of commercial boilers. It also meets the needs of students in special education or making the transition from school to work.

The Center also provides its clients and their families with a wide variety of support services, including remedial instruction, health and dental care, individual and group counseling, self-awareness groups and respite care. It also helps business firms respond to the needs of people with disabilities.

DOING BUSINESS

The Center provides jobs directly through seven businesses it operates--which also serve the community in various ways. They are: Recycling and Solid Waste, which provides curbside pickup in 25 New Jersey municipalities; Building Services and Groundskeeping, with contracts to clean and maintain more than 4 million square feet of commercial space; Production Services, providing businesses with assembly, finishing, packaging, mailing and printing services; Lakeside Imaging, specializing in scanning and microfilm technologies for data storage, FCDC Home Improvement and Construction, which performs all types of renovations and community development projects, Abbry Security, a uniformed security service, and the OCNJ Driving School, which specializes in commercial driver’s license training.

For more information contact us at: info@ocnj.org