ERI Programs | Youth Programs

Youth Programs

Employment Resources Inc. partnered with Chelsea-based Roca Inc. and numerous other community partners for a skills and education school for hard-to-serve youth.

The project is funded with a $2 million grant from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and has two main areas of focus: leadership training and collaboration with community groups for systemic change.

Roca has been in operation for 14 years serving youth, young adults and families in Revere and Chelsea. The organization works with young people who are: in gangs, school dropouts, parenting teens, those with disabilities and those without hope.

This program is called VIA Project: Vision, Intent and Action. It has two areas: Leadership Institute and work with engaged community institutions.

The Leadership Institute is a basic education and employment readiness school for the highest risk youth. The program aims to improve English fluency and life and work skills, including skills-development-through-labor-force-attachment.

Collaboration with community groups seeks to enact a wider, systematic change in how agencies, such as the juvenile justice system, the Department of Youth Services and Department of Social Services, work with youth. This portion of the project strives to educate groups on vulnerable youth and how each agency can better work with another to serve the youth in need.

The project calls on ERI's employment training expertise, particularly for difficult to serve populations. The youth receive counseling on rapid work attachment, contextual skills development and real-world career pathing among other assistance.

The program hopes to help 100 youth each year during its five year run.

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