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Friday April 16, 1999

Once on welfare, emigre now helps others find work

LESLIE KATZ
Bulletin Staff

When she immigrated to this country from Lvov, Ukraine, Eleanor Polishchuk hoped to continue the successful medical career she enjoyed at home.

But like so many other doctors from the former Soviet Union, she got sobering news. Despite her medical education and experience as a pediatrician and researcher, it would take at least four years to get a license in California.

In her early 50s and struggling financially, Polishchuk could not picture spending her first years in this country studying medicine all over again. She needed a job.

A little more than three years later, Polishchuk finds herself in a thriving new career. After acing a rigorous civil service exam in her second language, the 56-year-old doctor is an employment specialist at the Department of Human Services in San Francisco.

There, she passes on many of the job-hunting skills she had to learn from the ground up on arriving in this country. In many cases, she helps her clients transition from welfare to work, a move she herself made after several months on government rolls.

"My job is to help people become self-sufficient and independent," she said. Her own background makes it easier to relate to clients. "Maybe I am more close to their problems."

In recognition of her progress, Polishchuk will receive one of three Employee of the Year Awards at a Jewish Vocational Service luncheon Wednesday. Employers who have hired JVS clients nominate candidates for the annual award.

The two others receiving the award are Andre Miller, a 21-year-old African-American who has worked as a backstage technician, playwright and actor at Brava! for Women in the Arts Theater Center; and Khang Nguyen, a 60-year-old Vietnamese refugee who immigrated with his wife and five sons and works in the mail room at Sharper Image.

"He has an amazing work ethic," JVS' Melissa Irish said of Nguyen. "He is very serious about what he is doing and very motivated."

This year, a JVS committee selected winners from about 70 nominees.

JVS caseworker Naomi Marcus, who helped Polishchuk negotiate the shoals of the American job market when she first arrived, wrote a raving letter of support for her client's nomination.

"Her situation was so extraordinary," Marcus said, pointing out that Polishchuk overcame obstacles including age discrimination and language barriers to forge an entirely new career.

"She went about her search for a new profession with great vivacity and curiosity," Marcus said. "That made her a star."

Indeed, Polishchuk is a study in dedication.

On enrolling in English and job-search skills classes at JVS, "I studied like a schoolgirl, day and night," said Polishchuk, a sharply dressed woman with a ready smile.

She took part-time jobs as a medical translator and a supervisor for Child Protective Services before landing the job she wanted at the Department of Human Services.

The test required to get the job covered complex American mores and welfare-reform laws, among other things.

Now Polishchuk is a rare breed -- a recent immigrant who knows the American system so well she can guide dozens of clients through it. She has a caseload of 68 families. Though many come from the former Soviet Union, some are American born.

"I like to help them and see the results," she said. "When somebody gets a job, it's as if I got a job."

With her JVS training as her base, she keeps a vigilant watch on job openings, interviewing skills and networking strategies. "I have manuals, different books. I read literature. I have to know it."

Polishchuk, who lives in San Francisco with husband Vladimir and mother Sofia, said she never would have pictured herself in her current position.

"If somebody told me I would be working for the government in the U.S...I absolutely didn't imagine this situation."

The idea of getting an award for something she loves to do seems equally unreal to her. "I'm embarrassed," she said.

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