Payne County Youth Services is better able to reach out to at-risk youth and give them a steady summer job through federal stimulus money and Jumpstart Workforce Investment Act Youth Program.

The summer-long program, set to begin Monday, will offer youth a 32-hour-a-week job for eight weeks of the summer.

The youth include individuals between 16 and 24 years old who are low income and lacking in basic literacy skills, drop outs, homeless, runaways, foster children, pregnant or parenting or offenders or who require additional assistance to complete an educational program or secure employment, according to a Payne County Youth Services pamphlet.

“Our youth are excited and ready to go,” said WIA Program Coordinator Jeremy Frutchey. “They are all at-risk youth, they are the hardest to serve and the most in need of serving.”

He said the youth are sometimes tough to get through to because they have extra barriers.

Each youth will be paid $8 an hour by Youth Services and will check in once a week to discuss how the job is going and for Youth Services workers to offer encouragement to the employees.

The purpose of the program is to get youth active in learning a trade, so Youth Services can push them in a direction to excel in that field if they enjoyed that job.

“We also offer exposure to employment,” Frutchey said. “The worst thing you can do is spend two years learning to do a job and then deciding you hate it.”

The first week of the program will consist of job skills training, which includes resume building. The second week will give youth an opportunity to serve the community, Frutchey said. They will be painting alley walls and removing weeds from downtown Stillwater.

During the last six weeks, the youth will be on the job, getting paid to work in a variety of jobs, he said.

Youth Services has had similar summer programs, but have only been able to pay about 10 youth for 70 hours of work in the past. This summer’s program is funded by a little more than $70,000 given to Youth Services through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus bill.

“It’s ... along the intent of what they want us to do,” Frutchey said. “The fastest way we can spend the money is to put youth to work.”

He said the summer program serves 15 to 20 youth, and some spots are still open.

The youth’s new income will be good to stimulate the economy or be used toward books and educational expenses, Frutchey said

“The goal is to get money in the pockets of the youth,” he said. “We’re wanting them to experience what a career they can make a living off of when they will look like.”

Among the roughly 10 different job sites, youth will learn mechanical skills with Western Mechanical, get experience in Stan Clark Cos. offices and get technical training at Cushing Bowling Alley, a position that is becoming more specialized, Frutchey said.

“The employers we have called who were based out of Stillwater have been very receptive,” he said.

Positions at both the bowling alley and at Western Mechanical have apprenticeship programs that youth may be able to get into following the work experience.

Additionally, Frutchey said, the program could extend longer if Youth Services has more money. Frutchey said Youth Services wants to make it so all the youth have skills for self-sufficient careers, which he said is anything more than $11 per hour.



Payne County Youth Services also offers:

• Individual/family/group counseling

• Substance Abuse consoling

• Project Safe Place

• Parent Education

• Teen parenting group

• Emergency Youth Shelter

• Victims of Crime counseling

• Skills for success/first offender

• Advocacy and referral

Source: Payne County Youth

Services