Concerning the Career Rising program:
1. It is not the typical interventions for youth which have a start and end date that often leave youth fearful and uncertain for what comes next.
2. It is fully committed to each participant all the way through to post-secondary.
3. It is focused on creating sustained impact; on top of immediate impact; in increasing youth’s academic engagement, active community participation and workplace or university readiness.
4. It involves four integrated yet staggered support components for youth; each appropriate for stages of engagement.
5. It involves community partnerships and promotes holistic relationship building to sustain its impacts
6. It breaks the cycle of inter-generational poverty and acts as a prevention method to systemic dependence
7. It addresses labor market needs with a supply of local human resources
8. It acts as a safe space that nurtures early connection between youth and local employers through mentorships

Career Rising was piloted in summer 2017 and fully launched in summer 2018. Year 1 underwent an evaluation and identified best practices and areas of required improvement, resulting in the program launched this year. Year 2 is still in the implementation phase as we implement the post-secondary grant component and begin to track longer-term outcomes for participants. Additionally, the program has many opportunities for expansion and ESIA is in discussion with other government departments to support expansion into new sectors and to identify new funding avenues. ESIA is also working with our community partners to proactively identify new program participants for summer 2019.

The learnings from the pilot and implementation phase of Career Rising will influence existing and future programming. The robust evaluation completed to date has ensured that the participant, stakeholder and employer feedback has shaped the program to meet all needs and provide a rewarding experience for all.

Local employers create sustainable employment opportunities for youth in industries chronically facing labor shortages.
Nova Scotia Co-Operative Council acts as a delivery partner and shares a mandate with all their member employers.
The Colchester Community Credit Union has committed to providing a one-time $500 contribution per youth to enhance the post-secondary grant.
Dept. of Natural Resources and Dept. of Agriculture are involved in discussions of future program support and expansion.

Youth participants build confidence, learn essential employability skills and engage meaningfully in their communities. Dept. of Community Services benefits from the reduction of new youth intakes into ESIA system and of inter-generational reliance on income assistance. Local employers benefit by meeting their labor market needs and building a returning workforce. ESIA parents of youth recipients build their own economic independence; often resulted by the employment success of their dependence.

In 2017, 27 youth enrolled at 2 project sites, 26 completed the skills camps, 23 went out on paid work experience, 15 completed work experience, and 13 employers participated. In 2018, 61 youth enrolled at 4 project sites, 51 completed the skills development camps, 51 went out on paid work experience, and 30 completed work experience.

As the program is still in implementation phase, the evaluation has only focused on the outputs of the participation. A framework is in development to measure the objective and sustained impacts of the program. Surveys and focus groups are the primary tools designed to achieve the 3 areas of outcomes:
1. Increased academic engagement by means of enrolling into the higher education through the grant
2. Sustained community engagement by means of stakeholder participation in the program both service providers and employers
3. Increased workplace readiness by means of improving youth's self-confidence and financial literacy, leadership, interpersonal skills.

Last year, the skills development component was for only 1 week, and this year it was increased to 2 weeks to provide more opportunity to visit employers and their job sites to ensure youth readiness and understanding of the sector.

However, due to late summer drop-outs from the program (most youth were tracking to fully complete until the last week), the program saw that youth require a break between work and returning to school. Respecting this and wanting to ensure youth are set up for success, the Department decided to build in a week break for youth that request it at the end of the summer.

The pilot also saw transportation as a significant challenge, particularly in rural communities. Special travel arrangements were made to ensure rural youth could participate, but this access provision is expensive and hard to secure or maintain.

The transportation challenge will continue to exist when the program expands; and the Dept. is currently looking into ways to address this.

Legitimacy or the underlying support that the public has for a government is compulsory for a government program to achieve its public impact. This program saw local employers’ willingness to participate and commit to the program by accepting, providing opportunity and supporting youth who face barriers to entering workforce and engaging in community. The Dept. also engages different stakeholders namely the NS Co-Op Council and Community Credit Union effectively by identifying and leveraging their divergent roles and interests.

A good program design is a crucial condition for success and these are characterized by clear objectives and an understanding of what is feasible to implement. The Career Rising program is put in place because there is an understanding that the target youth need integrated and holistic support. The objective is clear: which is to provide sustainable well-targeted support. Because youth’s needs change, the implementation needs to also be agile and nimble.

The program's innovative elements can be replicated by other jurisdictions. It is a model that addresses the essential challenges faced by youth in poverty with specific outcomes dedicated to youth empowerment. Key elements that will precondition successful replication and scaling up are:
- Understanding of underpinning needs that youth in poverty face
- Development of lasting youth-community relationships
- Variety of support that is focused on youth empowerment
- Clear impact outcomes and strong evaluation framework

The Career Rising program isn't yet replicated but there is an intention to scale it up:
- It intends to include more underrepresented groups, specifically Aboriginal and African youth. Community partners have been identified.
- The Dept. is working with other departments to bring in work experience and equip all parties to execute their part of the initiative.
- Other jurisdictions in Canada have contacted the Dept. to explore potential replication of the program.

The pilot helped us learn key lessons that will help us improve our environment for success in the future:

• Strong pre-assessments on youth are required to ensure appropriate referrals and right fit with employers.

• Establishing community trust and investing in their interest are key. Having a community development lens to understand how the program will best benefit not just the youth recipients but also the community they engage in will bolster community’s commitment.

• A youth empowerment lens must be the primary filter applied to all components. Youth’s needs change and support needs to be delivered in ways that address these needs accurately. Youth empowerment in this case is not a “giving power” to youth to develop their skills and mindset but to support youth “discover the power” they already have within themselves.

• Employers and mentors must be provided with regular check-ins and support to mitigate any issues before they become significant. This allows quick feedback loop that will enable timely adjustment of program as well as promoting employers’ success as primary support delivery.

• Reducing the possibility of stigmatization to occur to youth participants; while building youth resilience in the time of struggle. There is always a stigma attached to people living in poverty and while preventing stigma from happening is essential, youth also need to be equipped with emotional resilience that will help them understand where the stigma is coming, how to navigate through them and how to successfully overcome them.

• Long-term commitment to the program and the building of public perception of it is important. It builds youth trust in government support, an otherwise distant entity that does not have a lot of touch points with them. Short interventions may lead to perpetuated sense of abandonment and create a band-aid solution that doesn’t build empowerment and sustained resilience.

Ultimately, the relationships formed between the participant and the employer had the biggest and long-lasting impact. it is crucial to choose employers who are willing to invest their time, energy and compassion into the youth. They act as mentors who challenge and empower youth to be better and celebrate all their successes, no matter how minor.

What makes Career Rising different is the variety of support types and designs that are consistently provided through a period of time and through a range of stakeholders. We want to break the cycle of inter-generational poverty and Career Rising combines significant financial support element to engage academically in community college with holistic relationship building that youth can exercise with the people in their lives. These may eliminate the need for student assistance debt for the youth while at the same time achieve economic independence and the confidence to sustain it.