Hillsides Selected to Lead Workforce Workshops for Los Angeles Youth

Hillsides Youth Moving On, a program for youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood, was selected to lead a workforce training workshop for 54 current and former foster youth from more than 10 Los Angeles County agencies. Forty-eight youth passed the five-week course in February, receiving two employment certifications and three college credit units.

During the training, held at Los Angeles Trade Technical College on five consecutive Saturdays, the youth identified their career weaknesses and strengths, learned hard and soft skills that are essential in today’s job market, and participated in mock interviews. Youth who completed the training are certified as work-ready and are being matched to jobs that fit their goals.

“Los Angeles has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the nation, especially for youth in foster care,” said Hillsides Chief Executive Officer Joseph M. Costa. “Our YMO workforce program is seeking to combat this trend and taking the lead in creating employment opportunities for these youth throughout Los Angeles County.”

The training, an unprecedented collaborative effort by the major foster youth agencies in Los Angeles County, was spurred by the iFoster Grocery Industry Initiative, which is seeking to prequalify youth formerly in foster care for jobs in the industry. The agencies that sent youth to the workforce training workshop included the Coalition for Responsible Community Development, the Opportunities for Youth Collaborative, the Alliance for Children’s Rights, the Guardian Scholars Program, Los Angeles City College, Hathaway-Sycamores, St. Anne’s, and Pacific Clinics.

The workshop was timed perfectly to a huge Job Fair for youth, 100,000 Opportunities, held on February 11, at the Los Angeles Convention Center where companies were hiring qualified youth on the spot. Several of the youth who completed the training received job offers, including Krystal Lopez, who used to live in YMO’s affordable housing program. Lopez, who said that she found the mock interviewing portion of the job training the most valuable, was offered a job at Starbucks.

The training was facilitated by YMO job developer Casswell Goodman with the assistance of YMO Youth Advocate Aurelio Mitjans. YMO was selected to lead the training due to its track record of success training and placing youth currently or formerly in foster care in jobs. The iFoster Grocery Industry Initiative was rolled out in the summer of 2015. iFoster asked several Los Angeles County agencies to send their “best and brightest” youth for prequalification workforce testing. The youth YMO sent tested at the highest levels and YMO also had the highest success rate in helping youth gain employment.

The curriculum used was developed through a partnership between YMO and four other local agencies, the Transition-Aged Youth (TAY) Collaborative. The group formed in order to address the lack of workforce instructional tools tailored to the unique challenges and barriers of youth in foster care. With funding from The Hilton Foundation, and the Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation, the TAY Collaborative worked with Dr. Lauren Gates at the Columbia University School of Social Work to create and implement a new, innovative workforce training curriculum.

The success of Hillsides YMO program is made possible by the support of many foundations, which include the Annenberg Foundation, All Saints Church Pasadena, The Angell Foundation, Bank of the West, California Community Foundation, Carl & Roberta Deutsch Foundation, the Charitable Foundation, Confidence Foundation, George Hoag Family Foundation, Lon V. Smith Foundation, Mozilo Family Foundation, Northrop Grumman Employees Charitable Organization, Pasadena Rotary, RGK Foundation, Ronald McDonald House Charities of Southern California, Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, TJX Foundation, U.S. Bank, and Walmart Foundation

Hillsides, founded in 1913 and headquartered in Pasadena, is a premier provider of child welfare services for children in foster care and families in crisis. It serves more than 6,200 children and families throughout Los Angeles County. For more information, please visit www.hillsides.org.