Homeless Youth
A collection of comprehensive education, employment, and career services for homeless and at-risk youth in San Francisco. Employment programs include YouthForce (entry-level work), Job Readiness Class, Institute for Hire Learning (paid internships), and Wire Up (computer and technology skills course). Other than shelter, what the kids at Larkin Street need most is a safe way to support themselves. They need to find immediate alternatives to the survival behaviors they have had to pursue to get money to support themselves – in the worst instances, prostitution and drug dealing.
Seattle based organization builds confidence and self-sufficiency for homeless youth by providing a continuum of care that includes outreach, basic services, emergency shelter, housing, counseling, education, and employment training. They offer three different employment opportunities including the federally funded YouthBuild.
Making Money: The Shout Clinic Report on Homeless Youth and Employment (B O'Grady, S Gaetz, B Vaillancourt. 1999)
Study to determine the needs and capacities of street youth with regards to employment. Attached below.
Childhood background: interventions should encompass prevention, and tackle the root causes of youth homelessness, which affect teens' employability whether they remain in the household or not (abuse, foster care/group homes, anger management, learning disabilities, attachment issues)
Adolescence: interventions should include financial and emotional supports to help them make the transition from the dependencies of childhood to becoming independent adults
Life on the streets: pathway to employment will be difficult and different for each different youth; employment will not be the solution for every homeless teen
Labor market: street youth are at a severe disadvantage, even when competing for the most basic minimum wage jobs: lack of social capital and education, mental illnesses, poor nutrition and illness, substance abuse, lack of housing
I Helped Build That: A Demonstration Employment Training Program for Homeless Youth in Toronto, Canada (R. Bridgman, 2001)
Case study on the development of Eva's Phoenix, a pilot project designed to provide housing and employment-training opportunities for homeless youth in Toronto, Canada. Attached below.
Employment, Education & Training (Chapter 15, Youth Homelessness in Canada: Implications for Practice and Policy, B O'Grady, S Gaetz, K Buccieri, J Karabanow, A Marsolais, 2013). Attached below.
The diverse backgrounds (education, age of homelessness, additions, mental health issues) and experiences of homeless youth are important when considering employment as a pathway off the streets.
Need employment that is highly flexible.
A highly structured program with a set number of required hours of attendance on consecutive days or weeks might work for young people with shelter, food, and support, but not necessarily for street youth.
Employment training must be integrated into a broader web of supports that address social exclusionary factors.
Concept of social exclusion includes inadequate housing and shelter, lack of income, educational disengagement, compromised health, weak social capital, chaotic lives, and interrupted adolescence.
Recommended key elements
Program philosophy
activities must be designed to support the needs of the developing adolescent
programming must address socially exclusionary factors that make participation in employment and training a challenge
young people need to leave the program with access to better jobs
Structural supports
stable housing
income
healthcare and social supports
Program components
focus on the development of real, marketable skills
client driven case management
targeting and supporting special needs
mentoring and job shadowing
opportunities for educational advancement