Berks County, Pa. – Eighteen-year-old MaKayla’s job as a summer camp counselor gives her a chance to encourage and support kids as they participate in gym, art class, canoeing, and other activities. Her interactions with young people and co-workers are also helping her work through communication challenges like stuttering when she feels anxious.
“Everything is about exposure,” said Rick Perez, CEO at the Olivet Boys and Girls Club of Reading & Berks County, where MaKayla is working as part of Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP™)’s partnership with Pennsylvania’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR), My Work. “Things aren’t so cut and dry when you’re working with kids,” he added.
The YAP OVR program, now in its fourth year, has placed more than 280 young people with disabilities or who face other employment barriers — those in rural communities, and/or have been justice system involved — in paid work experiences across Pennsylvania this season.
In 35 states and Washington, D.C., YAP is the nation’s leading nonprofit provider of community-based services that reduce the nation’s overreliance on youth incarceration and residential placements. The young people YAP serves are referred through youth justice, child welfare, developmental disabilities, education, and other public systems. YAP empowers program participants by helping them see their strengths and connecting them and their families with individualized tools to meet their economic, educational, and emotional goals.
“You don’t know that you can achieve something until you are actually exposed to it and actually try. It’s about youth being able to socialize in a different setting, efficiently communicate, and mostly – it’s about flexibility,” said Perez, who worked at YAP while in college.
The employment program started in June and runs through August.
“OVR is a hidden gem,” said Natasha Huertas, YAP Berks County, Pa., Administrative Manager and OVR Employment Instructor. “They pay for transportation to and from work, they help with obtaining a driver’s license, and assistive technology. OVR helps lead to independence to work.”
As the unique summer jobs program has expanded, it has extended its reach to nonprofit employment partners.
“We’re teaching them skills, but they’re also learning by working in these other nonprofit agencies,” YAP Berks County, Pa. Program Director Amy Schermerhorn said. “The nonprofits are helping YAP out by letting our staff and kids go work there, but, on the flip side, that organization is also doing great work in helping people in the community. To have YAP program participants gain skills from other nonprofits is a win-win situation. I find YAP’s collaboration with OVR to provide this service to students in Berks County so beneficial in so many fundamental ways.”
YAP Berks County, Pa. has 15 program participants ages 16-21, accompanied by four YAP staff participating in OVR this summer at the Olivet Boys & Girls Club, Hope Rescue Mission, and the LGBT Center of Greater Reading.
“I really think it’s important because this program gives people in our community a chance to get out there and learn a job skill that can be so beneficial to them in so many ways,” Schermerhorn said. “To me it feels like we’re giving back to the community because we’re working with other nonprofits in a positive way.”
MaKayla is one of four YAP Berks County, Pa. program participants working at the Olivet Boys & Girls Club.
“I enjoy hanging with the kids, learning new things about them, and being there,” MaKayla said. “They enjoy me being around them too.”
YAP Employment Specialist Lenny Stinson is at the Olivet Boys and Girls Club with program participants and says they are all learning how to socialize and shake off any fears they have about being in a work environment. Stinson, who believes in all the youth he works with, said MaKayla is the most outspoken participant, adding that she is “phenomenal.”
“She is really outgoing and is doing well,” Stinson said. “I just find it a rewarding challenge for these young people knowing that they will be able to face life outside in the workforce.They all have potential and I believe in their potential. With their developmental disabilities – that they have, they have challenges communicating with their peers, but they are here and are being more open in expressing themselves,” he added.
MaKayla, who learned masonry while in high school, graduated in June and plans to take this summer’s work experience to find a job at a construction company.
“I graduated knowing how to do brick laying,” she said. “That is my biggest career goal, to learn different things and to be successful.”
In addition to Berks County, YAP has placed program participants in jobs with employers in other counties throughout the Commonwealth including Adams, Bradford, Carbon, Crawford, Delaware, Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lancaster, Lebanon, Mercer, Mifflin, Monroe, Northampton, Philadelphia, Pike, Schuylkill, Susquehanna, and York.
“It’s about being able to pivot, adjust, and still be successful. There are so many different things that they’re learning,” Perez said.
For more information on YAP, visit yapinc.org.
OVR programs are supported by U.S. Department of Education. A total of $144,731,271 or 78.7% is financed with federal funds. The remaining 21.3%, including additional matching fund costs ($39,171,233) is funded by state appropriations and other non-federal allowable sources.