Solid Ground’s JustServe AmeriCorps team is launching a new effort to create opportunities for at-risk young adults. The Pathway to Career Corps project is a strategic partnership and initiative to create viable educational and career pathways for folks 18 to 24 in our community who are at high risk of unemployment, underemployment and lifelong poverty.

Pathway to Career Corps Members will experience a year of intensive case management, professional development, work experience, leadership development, service to the community, academic support for postsecondary education preparedness, and exposure to high-demand, living-wage career paths.

The project builds on Solid Ground’s experience as one of the largest national service teams in the state. The first pilot team of 13 young adults will start in September 2011 and work to:

• Envision their long-term career path – and how to get there.
• Enroll in postsecondary education toward a living-wage career path, obtain living-wage employment, or both.
• Strengthen their communication, conflict resolution, cross-cultural and leadership skills (key skills for success in today’s workplace, and a foundation that prepares Members for lifelong leadership and service to the community).
• Pathway Members will help to strengthen and expand critical community health, environmental, education and economic opportunity projects throughout Seattle/King County.

Between 2008 and 2018, new jobs in Washington requiring postsecondary education and training will grow by 259,000, while jobs for high school dropouts will grow by only 107,000. Fully 67% of all jobs in Washington State will require some postsecondary training beyond high school in 2018. Educational attainment and poverty are closely linked – the more education you have, the less likely you are to live in poverty. Individuals with an Associate degree on average make 20% more than high school graduates, and 70% more than someone with a high school diploma [Seattle Jobs Initiative].

“The goal of the Pathway to Career Corps is to help young adults access the stability and the learning of a 12-month intensive program, experience the transformational impact of service on themselves and the community, and develop a viable plan to move into a future living wage,” says JustServe AmeriCorps Supervisor Tera Oglesby. “National Service is a strategy to help them get there.”

For more information, contact Volunteer Resources Director, Glenn Puckett, at glennp@solid-ground.org.