Our Philosophy

Our Organization: YOUth Pathways is 501(c)3 non profit organized around a common sense approach to aligning the needs of all youth with the supports of broad scale community involvement through work-based learning. Through dedicated Business Liaisons who form our partnerships with the experts of local business, industry, and professionals, we create mentoring opportunities for youth while they experience the day to day routines of their intended career. As a true partnership between local Municipalities, Educational institutions, and Business, we can ensure the youth in our communities are placed in high quality, educationally aligned experiences that further their high school academics and prepare them for whatever their post high school path may be, all while supporting the local workforce needs of our regions in the most cost effective manner possible.

Our Board: representing the broad spectrum of our communities, our Board is the backbone of making our program a reality. By exhibiting a true partnership between Municipalities, Business, and Education, we have broad reach and ability to ensure YOUth Pathways is a solution for all our youth, and empowers them to succeed no matter their background.

Our Program: our program creates student focused, semester long, educationally aligned internship experiences that give students academic credit and are available during the school day. These components are critical to meet the needs of all youth, and address the access and equity issues inherent in similar models. Work Based Education should not be only for students with robust home supports or higher socio-economic backgrounds. Research shows that low income and first generation youth especially rely on institutional supports to better their outcomes, and that economic background is especially important in the transition from education to work. By embracing the philosophy that every student needs support, we can help our high achieving youth have better outcomes in higher education with less debt, we can ensure our work bound students gain invaluable social capital and mentoring, while increasing the quality of our regional workforce.