This report is a follow-up to Community Service Society’s (CSS) universal summer jobs proposal. As presented in their initial proposal, there is a dire need to increase the career preparation opportunities for young people in New York City. Youth unemployment, which research shows to be one of the strongest predictors of lifetime success, has increased dramatically. At the same time, career and technical education and other work-based learning programs have been shown to provide strong benefits to young people.
New York City’s Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), which served 60,000 youth in 2016, has the potential to be expanded and enhanced to ensure that every New York City youth receives a structured workforce learning experience as part of their education. In this report, CSS presents lessons learned from model programs documented in the summer of 2016, calls for New York City to offer every high school student a paid summer job as an optional extension of their academic year, and provides guidance on how the city can enhance and leverage the existing Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP).
HERE to HERE looks to long-standing organizations like CSS and others in the field to better inform our work of championing all young people and redefining the systems that unfairly burden Black and Brown students as they pursue their career ambitions. Development of this report was supported by Lazar Treschan, Director of Policy and Impact at HERE to HERE.
Download SJ_Case_Studies_-_final_web.pdf