The Department of Human Resources is coordinating a Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), under the direction of Fagan Stackhouse, with funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) via the local Workforce Investment Board/Opportunity, Inc. The program includes 138 youth, ages 14 through 24, and has the goal of helping youth attain work readiness skills needed in the workforce.

Supervisors in many departments across the City identified 21st century jobs, defined as those expected to provide good opportunities for employment in the future, and volunteered to work with the youth to teach them skills that would be beneficial for future employment.

The success of this program has required the coordination and involvement of many across the City. In addition to the Department of Human Resources and the 14 participating City departments, the Department of Human Services, with efforts led by Earl Ford, played a critical role in the success of this program by ensuring all youth met the stringent eligibility criteria required under ARRA; Barbara Brinson from the Department of Parks and Recreation/Youth Opportunities Office partnered with eight private sector organizations (Abacus, T.J. Maxx, Farmer’s Insurance, Reaching Our Community, Friendship Village, Dill Ainscouhduf Architects, Educational Policy Institute, and Enoch Baptist Church) for placement of 40 youth; the Virginia Beach City Public Schools, with coordination by Patti Greer of the Department of Human Resources provided a pre-assessment of the work readiness skills of each youth and trained the youth on 13 work readiness skills felt to be vital for the workplace; and the Department of Finance distributes pay checks weekly to each youth.

Regina Hilliard, Human Resources, serves as SYEP administrator, while Carlos Moulds, Human Resources and Jo Chambers, Human Services, serve as program coordinators. With assistance from Ashleigh Thorpe and Shawnti Todd, both temporarily assigned to Human Resources, the program coordinators perform weekly work-site visits to provide support to the program supervisors and to help monitor the progress of the youth. At the end of the eight- week program, the participants will be given a post-test to measure their progress in acquiring work readiness skills. The SYEP will conclude August 21, 2009.