Lit. Review

Program Brief

Selected Program

The program selected for the proposal paper is the Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) implemented by the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center (MMCC). MMCC is a very well-known Center in New York City that receives millions of dollars’ worth of public funds, every year, to provide youth, senior and community development programs throughout the City.

Benefits, Beneficiaries & Scope of the Program

The SYEP program provides young adults, ages 17 through 24, and youth as young as 14 to 16 years old, with proper working papers, an opportunity to gain employment for up to eight weeks during the summer months of July and August. MMCC is able to provide these services through City, State and Federal funders including NYC Department of Youth & Community Development (DYCD) and the NYS Department of Labor (DOL). The program must meet certain funding criterion to continuously receive the funding.

One of the goals of MMCC’s SYEP program is to “provide a valuable work experience at job sites that are safe and well supervised” (NYC DYCD, 2015), while decreasing youth unemployment and poverty for at-risk youth. This goal encompasses assisting youth in distinguishing what their career interests may be, while exposing them to different industries within the workforce. The program’s main objective is to establish good work-habits, professional development, financial literacy and eventually, long-term employment.

Problems to be Addressed by the Program

While the youth-employee applicant is selected via a lottery, there are specific eligibility requirements in place, to assure that the youth that come from lower-income, impoverished homes and neighborhoods, have the opportunity to obtain gainful employment through this program.

It is pertinent that programs like the SYEP program, continue to be evaluated, critiqued, then continuously improved. Although cliché, the statement that “youth is the future”, is a very true statement. It is important to have programs work to create opportunities for quality education and gainful employment for young people, who may not be able to easily access it on their own. A decrease in quality of these programs could result in at-risk youth engaging in risky behavior, remaining uneducated and financially illiterate, resulting in an increase in the unemployment and poverty rates.

The SYEP program works to address what could be, lack of examples of professional behavior or steady income, if a youth, for example, comes from a single-parent home where the parent may be unemployed. The program partners with the schools and financial institutions to provide education, training and knowledge for long-term success for the young candidates, including professional development and financial management literacy.

References

NYC Department of Youth & Community Development (2015). Jobs & Internships. 2014 NYC

SYEP Annual Summary. Retrieved from

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dycd/html/jobs/jobs.shtml