We are Stephen and Maria Blewitt, the founders of Youth.Work.Connect. We are both children of working-class and immigrant parents who taught us to value education and work, but who did not have the connections to help us get started in our careers.
Recognizing that our experiences are shared by many others from similar backgrounds inspired us to start Youth.Work.Connect. We are a mission-based organization dedicated to help high school students, and the adults in their lives, understand the importance of having social capital and to provide the resources and training to help students build career networks through youth employment initiatives. Through our work, and the work of many others, we envision a world where all youth are empowered to build connections that foster personal and professional growth.
WHAT’S NEW?
Well, as a newly-created organization, everything is new for us, but we are working from an old saying “it is not what you know, but who you know that gets you ahead in life”. As we start out, we have created a website (www.youthworkconnect.org) to share our story and some resources about the importance of building social capital and ways that both youth and adults can be more intentional in getting high schoolers to start building their networks. We want to thank Vicky Toth and Clayton NC Web Design for all their creative and technical skills building out our 1st website.
One of the resources that we have included on our website is a TEDx Talk about social capital by Robyn Faucy, CEO of Results 1st. While her talk was not specifically focused on youth, we think that the approaches she lays out can be incredibly beneficial if extended by adults to students they work with who may not have abundant access to social capital. You can also click here to see this inspiring video. Helping others activate access to social capital | Robyn Faucy | TEDxBradenton (youtube.com).
We are also busy building our curriculum for students and adults, and we are collaborating with a local high school on content. Our curriculum begins with the importance of building a broad network of relationships, including “weak” and “strong” ties, as a foundation for future success. Building a network of relationships is not easy and requires help from people willing to share their own networks, so we provide some exercises and tips for building that “muscle”.
AS THE SUMMER WINDS DOWN …
Hopefully, our high schoolers were able to work or volunteer during the Summer and gain some good experience that will help them in school and in their careers. Also, hopefully, managers and supervisors and their colleagues got to know some amazing students and were impressed by their hard work and willingness to learn and contribute. As the summer winds down, it is a good time to reflect on your summer experience and for the students to proactively ask for a reference from your manager or supervisor, and for managers and supervisors to provide an honest assessment of the work their students did. References can have a big impact on future employment and earnings, so students -don’t miss this chance to ask for help, and adults –a short, one-or two-paragraph letter can make a big difference in a young person’s life.
LET’S STAY CONNECTED.
We would appreciate your thoughts on our initiative and welcome opportunities to collaborate. You can reach us at info@youthworkconnect.org and we look forward to staying connected.
