The desired impact of the Calgary Youth Employment Initiative (CYEI) is to improve employment outcomes among Opportunity Youth in Calgary and contribute to the broader field of knowledge about effective youth employment strategies and programs in Calgary and beyond.
To achieve this, we aim to:
- Build non-profit capacity to forge relationships with employers and design effective Opportunity Youth employment programs.
- Increase employer willingness and capacity to recruit and retain Opportunity Youth in their workforce.
- Improve collaboration among supply (youth serving agencies) and demand (public and private sector employers) sides of Opportunity Youth employment.
Opportunity Youth are defined as those people aged between 18 and 29 who are not in school, training or currently employed. Opportunity Youth face barriers to employment such as poverty, unstable housing, or past interactions with the justice system.
The members of the Collaborative Funders’ Table (CFT) guide and fund the initiative. These members include Burns Memorial Fund, the Calgary Foundation, the City of Calgary, JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the RBC Foundation, and the United Way of Calgary and Area.
The CYEI implementation partners work with youth, employers and other stakeholders to achieve the goals set out above. These partners are Miskanawah, NPower Canada, Trellis and the City of Calgary Youth Employment Centre.
Research & Field-Building
Partnering to Improve Employment Opportunities for Young Adults
Based on research conducted by Double M Consulting and Training, this report outlines practical ideas for community agencies and employers to adopt to work together to hire marginalized youth. This report also identifies some opportunities for employers to adapt current policies and practices to reduce barriers for marginalized youth, and for community agencies to build strong relationships with employers.
The Calgary Youth Employment Initiative Formative Evaluation Report
This report released in May 2022 provides a summary of findings from developmental and formative evaluation processes that have been in progress to support the Collaborative Funder’s Table (CFT) since January 2020. It includes an overview of CFT-funded pilots, the field building activities, the learning cohort, the collaborative funding approach and other CFT-related initiatives. It documents preliminary progress towards outcomes and lessons for each component before describing several considerations for the CFT as its members think about the future. An Executive Summary of the Calgary Youth Employment Initiative Formative Evaluation is also available.
Bridging the Gap: A Guide to Supporting Employers to Hire and Retain Opportunity Youth
In our previous publication, Supporting Youth in Their Employment Journey: A guide for youth serving practitioners, we outlined ways to support Opportunity Youth to find and maintain employment. However, working with youth is only one side of the supply and demand equation. In this publication, we explore ways that youth serving practitioners can support employer partners to create positive working experiences for Opportunity Youth. Drawing on research as well as insights from Calgary-based youth employment professionals, we outline promising practices for identifying potential employer partners; engaging employers; preparing employers; and providing ongoing support to retain Opportunity Youth.
Funding and Convening a Social Innovation Lab: Lessons from Calgary’s Collaborative Funders’ Table
Improving employment outcomes among youth facing barriers is a complex challenge requiring collaboration among multiple stakeholders. Instead of going with conventional approaches to grantmaking (e.g., design or feasibility grant to a single organization, letters of intent, requests for proposals), Calgary’s Collaborative Funders’ Table (CFT) decided to explore the process of funding and convening a social innovation lab. This learning brief captures lessons from the CFT process and other research related to labs. It is designed with public and private grantmaking organizations in mind. The brief begins with a short overview of why social innovation labs are promising in their potential to help address complex challenges, shares lessons learned through the CFT experience with the Calgary Youth Employment Lab, and ends with a series of considerations and recommendations for other funders interested in exploring this new territory.
Soft Skills Development for Opportunity Youth: A Proposed Service Delivery Model
Authored by the Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC), this document aims to provide an evidence-based practice guide to working with youth to develop soft skills through employment support and training. The term “soft skills” describes a range of skills related to emotional intelligence, inter- and intra-personal abilities, and personal traits or attributes favourably associated with career development. The full report includes a preliminary employment service delivery model informed by the latest evidence on the value of soft skills in the modern economy, including a focus group discussion with youth and interviews with service providers and agency staff. SRDC also highlights strategies, tactics, and promising practices that youth participants and agency staff said they found effective in soft skills training.
Supporting Youth in Their Employment Journey: A Guide for Youth-Serving Practitioners
Finding work can be challenging for Opportunity Youth who, despite their many strengths, often lack the experience or training that would make them competitive. Many Opportunity Youth also struggle with life circumstances that create additional barriers to employment, including poverty, trauma, racism, addictions, homelessness, and mental health issues, and therefore may struggle with employment-readiness. This practitioner’s guide is designed to help build the capacity of youth serving professionals interested in supporting youth employment to engage with these young people and support them on their employment journey. The goal is to enable Opportunity Youth to find and maintain meaningful and sustainable work.
Untapped Talent: Exploring the Benefits of Opportunity Youth for Employers
In this guide, we explore a few of the benefits associated with tapping into this under-utilized population, and outline some next steps for employers who are interested in engaging more Opportunity Youth.
Customized Hiring Events: A Guide to Engaging Opportunity Youth
Working in collaboration with the City of Calgary Youth Employment Centre (YEC), Starbucks has been running customized hiring events for Opportunity Youth in Alberta for over three years. This guide describes what they’ve learned about how to structure and adapt hiring processes in ways that meet the needs of both employers and Opportunity Youth.
Lessons from the Pandemic: Supporting Opportunity Youth During COVID-19 and Beyond
In January 2021, we asked representatives from youth-serving agencies to share how they adapted their services to accommodate the new reality of working with Opportunity Youth in the COVID environment. This learning brief outlines strategies utilized by these practitioners, as well as some additional ideas culled from a brief scan of related research and online resources. While COVID public health measures may soon ease, many of the lessons learned through the pandemic are applicable in a post-pandemic environment, including those related to outreach, supporting mental wellness, identifying new employment opportunities, and preparing young people to work in an employment environment that is becoming increasingly technology based.
Engaging Indigenous Peoples: Lessons for Funding and Program Design
In the early days of the initiative, it became evident that if the CFT wanted to effectively address barriers to employment among marginalized youth, they would need to bring Indigenous perspectives to the process. This case study reflects experiences and learning among members of the CFT, participants in the youth employment social innovation lab, and Elders and Indigenous leaders involved in the process.
NPower Canada Learning Briefs
NPower Canada is an organization that launches underserved young adults into meaningful & sustainable careers in the Information and Communication Technology Field. These briefs document NPower Canada’s best practices in order to support other workforce development practitioners in developing and refining their own models for supporting Opportunity Youth.
- The NPower Canada Model
- Supporting Underserved Youth to Secure and Sustain Meaningful Employment
- An Overview of NPower Canada Alumni Supports
- Future-Proofing
- Indigenous Youth Empowerment and Inclusion
- Social-Emotional Competencies
Calgary Youth Employment Lab: Lessons from this Process
The CFT convened the Calgary Youth Employment Lab in 2019 to bring together youth, youth-serving agencies, employers and other stakeholders to identify new strategies and models for addressing youth employment challenges. This developmental evaluation report explores the social innovation lab approach as a way to develop solutions for the complex challenge of improving the employment outcomes of Opportunity Youth. The lab process generated many lessons related to funding and convening a social lab; labs as a method to address social issues; creating and strengthening employment pathways for vulnerable youth; and working with Indigenous peoples to collectively tackle complex challenges.
Calgary Youth Employment Lab Showcase Video
The CFT’s social innovation lab process brought together youth, employers, youth-serving agencies, funders and other stakeholders to explore, learn, innovate, work together, test and ultimately expand strategies to address youth employment issues in Calgary. This video, created by Business on Camera, tells more about the work of the lab and the prototypes that emerged.
Sense-Making Workshop Graphic
The CFT organized a sense-making workshop in September 2018 as part of the social innovation lab process to discuss challenges, opportunities and ideas related to youth employment in Calgary. Sam Hester, a local graphic recorder, created a visual record of that day. Please click on the image below to view the full size.
Improving Employment Outcomes for Vulnerable Youth
In early 2018, Burns Memorial Fund commissioned research to inform the development of employment programming for youth aged 15 to 24 years and especially those who face multiple barriers to entering and succeeding in the work force and are at risk of social and economic exclusion. This report summarizes that research and was used to inform the design and implementation of the CYEI.
Other Resources
Calgary Employer Forum Website
The Calgary Employer Forum is a pilot project of the CYEI. The Forum website offers a platform for businesses and non-profit organizations to gather and collectively learn best practices to better hire and retain youth who have faced barriers to employment in the past.
City of Calgary Youth Employment Centre (YEC)
YEC offers free employment services to youth aged 15-24 in Calgary and is the CYEI implementation partner for the Pop-Ups pilot project.
Miskanawah
Guided by Indigenous teachings, Miskanawah offers evidence-informed, supportive services to people in the Calgary area as they strengthen their circles of self, family, community, and culture. Miskanawah is the CYEI implementation partner for the re:VISION Indigenous Youth Employment pilot project.
NPower Canada
NPower Canada’s holistic workforce development program provides youth participants with free in-demand technical digital and professional skills training, and connects them to new and rewarding career opportunities with some of Canada’s largest employers. NPower Canada is the CYEI implementation partner for the Calgary Peer Mentorship pilot project.
Opportunity for All Youth (O4AY)
O4AY is a national, employer-led youth hiring coalition that works with companies like Starbucks, Walmart and The Source to connect diverse, job-ready youth with early-talent roles through hiring events and networking activities. YEC is the local community service partner for O4AY.
Trellis
Trellis offers a number of programs and services for people in Calgary, including HireUp – an online platform connecting youth aged 16-29 to employers offering meaningful employment. Trellis is the CYEI implementation partner for the Calgary Employer Forum.
The work of the CYEI is based in the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Îyâxe Nakoda Nations, the Métis Nation (Region 3), and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.