YouthForce NOLA
Project Title
As a final general support grant
Date
Dec. 14, 2023
Duration
24 months
Description
YouthForce NOLA (YouthForce) is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students to succeed in the high-wage, high-demand STEM career pathways available in the Greater New Orleans region. Previous Corporation support allowed YouthForce to develop sustainable solutions addressing students’ social and emotional needs in the face of the pandemic. Corporation support also assisted YouthForce in rebuilding the career awareness and exploration pipeline for students. It assisted training providers and schools to help high school students earn industry-recognized credentials aligned to careers. It provided rising seniors with meaningful work experience in internships aligned with employer needs while integrating soft skills into their programs. Continued Corporation support will allow YouthForce to focus on core system change priorities to increase the impact on students and ensure their long-term employment and economic success.
Website
Project Title
For general support
Date
Sep. 15, 2022
Duration
12 months
Description
YouthForce NOLA (YouthForce) is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students to succeed in the high-wage, high-demand STEM career pathways available in the Greater New Orleans region. Previous Corporation support allowed YouthForce to develop sustainable solutions to address students’ social and emotional needs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, including rebuilding the career awareness and exploration pipeline for first- and second-year high school students, supporting training providers and schools to help high school students earn industry-recognized credentials aligned to careers before high school graduation, providing rising seniors with meaningful work experience in internships aligned to employer needs through their flagship YouthForce Internship (YFI) program, and integrating soft skills into the previously described programs. Continued Corporation support will allow YouthForce to focus on core system change priorities to increase the impact on students and ensure their graduates’ long-term employment and economic success.
Website
Project Title
For general support
Date
Sep. 02, 2021
Duration
12 months
Description
YouthForce NOLA (YouthForce) is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students to succeed in the high-wage, high-demand STEM career pathways that will become available in the Greater New Orleans region. Previous Corporation support allowed YouthForce to develop sustainable solutions to address students’ social and emotional needs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. YouthForce NOLA created a Virtual Soft Skills “Library” to provide free soft skills resources to students, families, and organizations that serve students. Continued support will allow YouthForce NOLA to rebuild the career awareness and exploration pipeline for high school freshman and sophomores through quality career awareness and exploration coursework/activities, support training providers and schools to help high school students earn industry-recognized credentials aligned to careers before high school graduation, provide rising seniors with meaningful work experience in internships aligned to employer needs through their flagship YouthForce Internship (YFI) program, and integrate soft skills into the previously described programs.
Website
Project Title
For support of a virtual soft skills library to build capacity in New Orleans schools to improve soft skills
Date
Sep. 10, 2020
Duration
12 months
Description
YouthForce NOLA (YouthForce) is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students to succeed in the high-wage, high-demand STEM career pathways that will become available in the Greater New Orleans region. Previous Corporation support allowed YouthForce to provide students intensive training to succeed in the workplace, and also education and life, with a focus on the six Building Blocks (Personal Mindset, Planning for Success, Social Awareness, Verbal Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving), a social, emotional and cognitive skills framework. Developing sustainable solutions to address students’ social and emotional needs in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic is the focus of this renewal. YouthForce will create a Virtual Soft Skills “Library” to provide free soft skills resources (video, audio, readings, presentations and toolkits) to students, families, and organizations that serve students. By amassing an aligned, youth friendly, asset-based, and centralized repository of resources, YouthForce hopes to more closely align K-12 learning, higher education and careers, while giving students the skills they need to succeed in all of those settings.
Website
Project Title
For soft skills capacity building and scaling
Date
Sep. 12, 2019
Duration
14 months
Description
YouthForce NOLA (YouthForce) is an education, business, and civic collaborative that prepares New Orleans public school students to succeed in the high-wage, high-demand science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career pathways that will become available in the Greater New Orleans region. With support from the Corporation, YouthForce will ensure soft skills are taught and reinforced in high schools, training program, colleges, and on job sites. Through a partnership with MHA Labs, YouthForce will build capacity in New Orleans schools to improve soft skills through a series of trainings for educators and employers, the development of a soft skills community of practice, and partnerships with schools, training providers, and employers. Through these activities, YouthForce will engage professionals from K-12 and alternative education, youth development, and workforce development in learning together how to integrate critical, employer-validated soft skills (e.g., problem-solving, collaboration, communication, planning, personal mindset, and social awareness) into their regular instruction and/or supervision of young people.