Youth Employment Services YES is the leading provider of employment services and programs to vulnerable youth in the greater Toronto region. YES programs and services give unemployed young people ages 15-30, the opportunity to develop the skills necessary to secure and maintain employment.

YES is passionate in our belief that educated, employed, and engaged young people possess the power to solve the world’s toughest problems. For young people with barriers to employment such as homelessness, a lack of formal education, a criminal record and drug abuse, overcoming these hurdles sometimes seems impossible. This is where YES steps in to support youth in conquering these barriers by providing free programs and services to get their lives back on track.

Investing in vulnerable youth supports them to successfully transition into adulthood and lead resilient lives. Positive transitions into adulthood represent a critical time for transforming and breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty. It is a time when youth are able to expand their opportunities through education, skills training and personal development, ultimately laying the foundation for healthy lives.
 

Over the past year the youth in our programs have reported a variety of needs. To ensure our programs and services are best suited to the barriers and needs faced by our youth, we have facilitated surveys that had 200 youth respond. Some key needs noted in the survey were:

Increased access to industry-specific training:
Youth in our community are affected by the constant shifts in the labour market and identified that they are in need of specific skills and training. YES has responded by building on and enhancing our suite of Workforce Development Programs over the past few years. These programs are focused on two key industries in the Toronto economy – Tech and Trades. Learning these in-demand skills and receiving certifications relevant to their area of interest is setting up youth to succeed. Whether their focus is cybersecuity, cloud computing, construction or painting youth in our Workforce Development Programs are gaining valuable knowledge to help them reach their career goals.

Increased access to mental health support:
In recent years an increasing number of youth have identified a need for robust mental health support. Working with a qualified instructor, we have expanded on our Cognitive Behavioural Therapy pilot to support our most vulnerable youth. Launched on a small scale in 2020, the results have been very positive with 80% of recent participants stating that they would often or always use the information provided in their daily lives and 93% stating that they feel more confident about looking for work. We have expanded these critical services to more young people in 2022-2023 by hiring an in-house CBT therapist to serve youth organization-wide.

Increased connections to Mentors:
Youth who participated in our survey identified that mentorship opportunities would benefit their career. In times of distress, youth need a caring adult that they can turn to, to help them make sense of the abrupt changes to their livelihood and to keep them connected to professional networks. YES continues to leverage its Mentorship Hub to connect youth with industry leaders virtually, through email and through telephone, so that they do not feel isolated and to keep them connected to their industry. We have also added a Critical Needs Navigator to enhance this support. This staff member works with you to help them navigate the basic need supports, programs and services YES offers and engage more mentors in our Mentorship Hub.