The mission of YouthWorks is to build a community solution to help young people whose potential might be overlooked to pursue employment and career development opportunities.
Results: Since its inception in 1994, YouthWorks has served over 20,000 youth in the Pittsburgh region and serves 1,200 youth each year, providing them with critical career building experiences such as employment, job readiness training, job shadowing, career development workshops, and job tours. YouthWorks also funds community-based organizations to hire youth while also providing training and professional development for youth serving agencies.
Target demographics: underserved youth (14-25) who want to find opportunities to enter the workforce and employers that want to hire young reliable workers with a strong work ethic and develop their pipeline of future workers.
Direct beneficiaries per year: 1,000-1,500
Geographic areas served: Pittsburgh and its surrounding communities
Programs: JumpStart Success (JSS) Curriculum
YouthWorks' signature job readiness and career exploration training curriculum for teenagers and young adults.
Age Up, Not Out (AUNO)
Job readiness training and career exploration services for young adults ages 18-25.
GoodGuides Mentoring
Career mentoring for youth ages 12-17.
HIRE Me
After-school career exploration program for high school students that runs during the school year.
HIRE
Capstone employment experience for active YouthWorks program participants, including paid internship and employment opportunities with local companies and nonprofit organizations.
RISE Project
8-10 weeks of free vocational training in a variety of fields, leading to a pre-apprenticeship certification through the Home Builders Institute.
Donor & Volunteer Advisory
This organization's nonprofit status may have been revoked or it may have merged with another
organization or ceased operations.
North Hills High School was very glad to participate in the 2008 Job Shadowing Week. We believe that the program offered many beneficial experiences to our students. Most of our students indicated that they had both educational and enjoyable experiences.
We do wish that some of the job shadowing sites might provide Youthworks! with more accurate information about the actual activities the students would be engaged in and the actual personnel which would be present. There were several disappointing situations where the advertised public official was not even in town and another where our students stuffed envelopes all day.
Thank you again for organizing the Job Shadowing Week effort. We look forward to participating in the coming year.
I want to commend YouthWorks for an excellent mock interview session for Peabody students to develop interviewing skills to help them secure suitable employment. This is the kind of activity that is concrete and results oriented, and is exactly what the community needs. As an interviewer, I was impressed with the training that the students had received from YouthWorks, and feel that this will give them an edge when they are out there looking for a job. Please keep up the excellent work.
Kannu Sahni
University of Pittsburgh
Office of Human Resources
As soon as you walk in the door you are greeted with a friendly atmosphere and helpful staff. This organization has a wonderful energy and provides work to the at-risk youth.
I've been working with YouthWorks for 5-years now, and it has always been a pleasure. We have 4 students who are in our Puppet Troupe and one Mentor through YW. We believe strongly in the potential that Youth have and YW gives us an opportunity to showcase the Youths voice. YouthWorks "gets it". They understand how important it is to build and maintain the self-esteem of young people and they look for venues to make that happen. We are proud to be a part of such an outstanding organization.
Stephanie
Professional with expertise in this field
11/06/2007
Rating: 5
11/06/2007
I have worked for YouthWorks for just over a year. We are beginning to implement an exciting new strategic plan, which will increase the number of youth we serve by 100% in five years! If anyone can achieve this goal, it's the YouthWorks' staff. This is an organization that strategically cultivates winning partnerships with other youth-serving organization, employers, and youth.
The staff is so welcoming and energetic. You can just tell they are excited to go to work in the morning. The programs seem like they are innovative and effective- helping youth through many different aspects of getting an internship that puts them on the path towards a career.
