Former SITE Client Jessica Brewer Maintaining Successful Start to New Career

Jessica Brewer is still in a good place, and things are looking up. 

A resident of Leslie County, Brewer first told her story publicly in September 2021, relaying her past struggle with substance use issues that just three years prior resulted in her incarceration—a result that she says served as the beginning of a path on which she is now building a new career and helping others along the way.

Jessica Brewer

“That’s really where I started to find myself,” Brewer said last year. “When I went to jail, thank God I have a caring enough family who did know to talk to people and tell them I needed help and didn’t give up on me. So, when I was in jail, I started thinking that I’m grateful. I have people who care about me, and I’m getting better, and this is what I want to do.” 

Getting to where she is now in her career wasn’t easy, but Brewer says the resources available in the community played a significant role, especially after she enrolled for services with a program called Strategic Initiative for Transformational Employment, or SITE for short. An initiative of Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program (EKCEP), SITE is a statewide program that works to bridge the gulf between recovery and productive participation in the workforce by providing eligible Kentuckians with valuable career services while actively cultivating second-chance job opportunities. 

For Brewer, she continued to get better and knew that despite her past history with addiction, she could turn those experiences into something positive that would help someone else struggling with similar issues. In 2021, she began working with Barbara Gay, who then worked as a job entry and retention support specialist with SITE and was able to help her access a number of services, including training for what would eventually be the first step into a new career.

Brewer says that at the time she and Gay met, she was already thinking about ways that she could use her own story to help others like her. So when Gay discussed the possibility of enrolling Brewer in peer support training, it seemed like a good fit. She had also re-enrolled in school and began working toward earning two associate’s degrees at Hazard Community and Technical College (HCTC) with a plan to earn a bachelor’s degree in human services. 

Brewer eventually enrolled in training to gain peer support certification, with SITE covering the costs of the program. By the time she finished her training she’d already landed a job, working inpatient care at a women’s recovery program, and has since moved on to a position with Kentucky River Community Care in Leslie County, working in the company’s intensive outpatient program (IOP). She also recently obtained certification through the University of Cincinnati to work in KRCC’s parenting classes with family court. 

The job duties may have changed a bit, but Brewer says she’s happy to continue to be able to use what she has learned to help others who are facing similar challenges relating to addiction. And it’s also helping her maintain her own sobriety along the way. 

“Seeing these people that are still struggling and still fighting everything in court and going through all that makes me never want to go back to that,” she says. “I learn just as much about myself with my job as I learn about the clients.” 

Peer support specialists can play an important role in individuals’ recovery from substance use, working one-on-one or in a group setting to draw upon their own experiences to help set goals and offer support in clients’ recovery. And that’s a role that Brewer says she continues to take seriously.  

“You just never know when you're the only person that somebody feels comfortable talking to, because I can remember how that felt sometimes,” she says. “You don’t want to talk to a family member, or sometimes you don’t want to have to talk to a social worker all the time. So, I try to be that to those people because I get it. If anybody gets it, I do.” 

As Brewer continues her career path, she says her decision to enroll in SITE was one that helped ensure she was successful in re-entering the workforce. In addition to covering the cost of her peer support straining, SITE covered costs for work clothing and provided her with a fuel card to cover transportation costs to and from the job she held at the time. It was support that she says she was thankful to have, so much so that she and Gay have remained in contact even after her enrollment ended. 

“Because I had been to jail and I had drug charges, I thought it was pointless to go back to school and even get certified to do anything,” Brewer says. “Barb would talk to me and she would say, ‘No, I promise, there’s jobs out there.’”  

Fast forward to November 2022, and Brewer is maintaining a busy schedule with her job and working toward a bachelor’s degree, with a goal of earning a master’s degree. She’s even pondering a doctorate in psychology at some point. It’s a big goal to work toward, but Brewer has changed her outlook these days, something she says is crucial and something she tells her clients quite often. 

“I tell my clients all the time that when they learn to change their perception, that’s when life gets better,” she says.  

Brewer speaks from experience, and it’s her history that is helping propel her through the opening stages of what promises to become a rewarding career in which helping others is her mission. It’s a mission that she is already well on her way to accomplishing.

To learn more about the services available through SITE, visit www.ekcep.org.

EKCEP, a nonprofit workforce development agency headquartered in Hazard, Ky., serves the citizens of 23 Appalachian coalfield counties. The agency provides an array of workforce development services and operates the Kentucky Career Center JobSight network of workforce centers, which provide access to more than a dozen state and federal programs that offer employment and training assistance for jobseekers and employers all under one roof. Learn more about us at http://www.ekcep.org, http://www.jobsight.org and http://www.facebook.com/ekcep.