Life Skills Workshop Inc. can help. This community-based non-profit offers training sessions, job mentoring, clothing assistance and more to women who are transitioning from jail or shelters into the workforce. The goal: to teach women how to achieve career success and self-sufficiency.

Although Life Skills Workshop is based in Kensington, about one-third of its volunteers come from Prince George's County. Executive Director Teresa Gardner-Williams, who resides in Upper Marlboro, said the organization benefits the entire region. "The women participating in the program are my neighbors," she said. "If they're healthy, my community is healthy. You strengthen the whole community when you teach women how to provide for themselves and their kids."

The majority of the participants have been incarcerated in the Montgomery County Pre-Release Center. Others may come from halfway houses, battered women's shelters or residential substance-abuse treatment centers. More women are winding up in the correctional system because of mandatory sentencing laws, Gardner-Williams said. Those who come from homeless shelters may have been laid off and unable to pay their rent. Victims of domestic abuse often end up in shelters with little more than the clothes on their backs.

The shelters and treatment centers send women to Life Skills Workshop for assistance with resume writing, interviewing and more. But the women must be ready to make a change. "Women who are just entering a substance-abuse treatment center can focus only on staying clean," Gardner-Williams said. "Other women think they're going to get a job without any effort. You've got to be stable and willing to do the work."

The program conducts six-week workshops on Saturday mornings that last for about four hours. These sessions, which are available in the spring and fall, cover such topics as life after incarceration, resume writing, workplace expectations and dressing for success. Women graduate at the end of each session, and former participants serve as workshop speakers and assist with clothing distribution.

Participants may range from women who dropped out of middle school to women who have master's degrees and professional licenses. Any number of wrong turns ­ marriage to an abuser, drug addiction ­ may have led them to the program. "I remind volunteers that the participants are just like us," Gardner-Williams said. "Mentors have been to graduate school, and so have participants. Mentors are raising their grandchildren, and so are participants."

Angela Miotto of Greenbelt has served as a volunteer for about a year. She values the program because it gives women a new start. "I really do it for the children," Miotto said. "If the mothers are established and self-sufficient, the children's lives are easier."

Miotto has mentored one participant and presented a session on job-search strategies.

The program participant she worked with battled drug addiction and had possibly been incarcerated. "Instead of probing into their lives, you learn to take them as they are," Miotto said. "The women have been through the wringer, and maybe they've dealt with a lot of broken promises. They may not act the way you'd expect, and it can get discouraging when women don't follow through."

Miotto persevered in the relationship, even driving to Rockville to get more information for the woman's resume. After the woman graduated, she sent Miotto a holiday card with a thank-you note. "She wasn't really friendly at first, but she warmed up toward the end," Miotto said.

Mentors follow up with their cases for at least six months after a session ends. Unfortunately, the participant Miotto was working with disappeared shortly after graduation. Even so, Miotto provided valuable assistance ­ and received a lesson in compassion.

"You can't define success your way," Miotto said. "You never know what kernels of truth a person might absorb and use later. Those of us in the middle class have no idea what these women have had to endure. All we can do is throw out a lifeline and hope someone grabs it and hangs on."