Jewish Vocational Service

Mission Statement

JVS, organized in 1939, is a nonprofit, nonsectarian, community based, vocational, education, rehabilitation, training, health and human service agency. The mission of the agency is to use its special knowledge and skills to help members of the community maximize their abilities and potential and become economically self-reliant, productive citizens. This mission is based on the recognition that human beings deserve the opportunity to be useful, share in the dignity of work, and engage in meaningful and satisfying endeavors at every level of personal capability. Since its organization, JVS has lived by its adopted credo: The highest degree of charity is to take hold of persons who have been crushed ... to find work for them and thus put them on their feet so that they will not be dependent upon others. (Moses Maimonides, 1135-1204)

JVS' highest priorities are the individuals who need its help the most:

• Unemployed family wage earners

• Dislocated, downsized employees

• People with disabilities

• Individuals transitioning from welfare to work

• Newly arrived émigrés or refugees

• At risk youth

• Mature adults

• Frail elderly individuals

• People who require new skills to obtain or maintain employment

• The next working generation

  Today, JVS serves nearly 16,000 people annually with a staff of 100 employees and an operating budget of $6.1 million. The agency provides a broad range of services for individuals from age 14 to 100+ throughout the State. Services include career counseling; life-work planning; aptitude and psychological testing; educational planning; vocational evaluation; customized skills training; émigré resettlement and citizenship education; English as a Second Language and adult basic education; eldercare services; vocational rehabilitation; case management; job placement; and customized, on-site training for employees at the workplace.

  JVS is a beneficiary agency of the United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ. Its programs are funded by grants from the US Department of Labor; the US Department of Homeland Security; the NJ Department of Labor and Workforce Development; the NJ Department of State; the NJ Division of Vocational Rehabilitation Services; the Essex County Division of Economic Development, Training and Employment; the Essex County Division on Aging; the City of Newark; the Morris County Department of Human Services; and numerous private and corporate foundations. JVS is accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities (CARF) and is a member of the International Association of Jewish Vocational Services (IAJVS) and ACCSES NJ (formerly the NJ Association of Rehabilitation Facilities).