Mayor Sharon Weston Broome is expanding her Mayor’s Youth Workforce Experience program, an eight-week job placement program for Baton Rouge workers ages 14 to 24 to gain job experience and workforce skills.
The program, which launched in 2017 with 150 participants, matches area youths with a part-time job in the region. Participants also receive soft skills and other career training on Fridays from the mayor’s office. The goal is to help create a “workforce ready” pipeline. As part of the program, participants receive a roughly $1,000 stipend from the mayor’s office.
“This is really a public-private partnership,” says Courtney Scott, city-parish chief service officer. “If the business community leans in, we can really lean in back.”
By 2019, participation increased to 500 workers, though the city-parish had received over 1,300 applications. This year, Broome aims to double last year’s participation and expand the program to 1,000 area youths.
As part of the expansion, the mayor’s office is looking for additional area businesses to become partners. Businesses can either partner by becoming a financial investor in the program, which helps the mayor’s office pay students stipends, or by hosting a worker over the summer. Some of the program’s past partners include Excel Group CEO David Roberts, Valluzzo Companies, Capital One and Raising Cane’s.
The mayor’s office is holding a program partner’s kickoff event 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Goodwood Library, where business owners and industry leaders can learn more about the program and how to get involved. The summer cohort begins the first Monday in June, but Scott says if the program garners enough interest, they would like to expand it to quarterly.
“It’s a big leap and we need business participation,” Scott says. “It’s an investment in the community, not just to hire these workers, but to help train them with skills on top of them receiving on-the-job experience.”
