Youth Employability Skills (YES) Program

Ashtabula County Community Action Agency¿s mission is to help people achieve self sufficiency and rise above issues of poverty. To help ensure that low-income high school students at Lakeside High School break the cycle of poverty and are better prepared to enter the local workforce, the Youth Employability Skills (YES) program will build the capacity of ACCAA by developing a youth career readiness program. VISTA members will utilize ACCAA¿s Dragon Empowerment Center and Dragon Plus programs to uncover unmet workforce needs among local high school youth and will use our program collaborators as stepping stones to build relationships with local youth serving entities. Working with students during the school year, VISTAs will research and create a job readiness curriculum, including lesson plans on topics designed to build skills as well as provide workshops and support in order to keep students engaged in school and increase their workforce skills. Beyond the academic year, VISTAs will plan and coordinate programming for a career readiness summer camp which will take place during the months of June and July. In addition to on-site career exploration and readiness curricula, the summer camp programming will include field trips to explore various continuing education opportunities as well as local employers. VISTAs will also create resources that will be made available to students and their families such as a Student Resource Guide.