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Institute for HIRE Learning
HIRE UP is Larkin Street Youth Services’ education and employment initiative, designed to help homeless and runaway youth achieve their potential. Once youth at Larkin Street have completed HIRE UP’s Job Readiness Class, they are given the opportunity to move directly onto a rewarding career track. They can do this through our Institute for HIRE Learning, a competitive program offering paid internships with local businesses and organizations. The Institute also helps youth access and afford formal vocational training, enabling them to work themselves into a higher income bracket. Participants may pursue internships in an impressive array of career areas, including culinary arts, veterinary care, and multimedia. Youth are encouraged to seek their own path, and staff help develop exciting internship opportunities that will prepare them for lifelong vocations. In many cases, they choose to work toward careers in which they can help others as they have been helped, through internships in nonprofit social services, HIV prevention, or nursing. Throughout the internship, participants gain extra support by attending professional development workshops on topics such as time and money management, self-care and crisis management. These workshops focus on teaching advanced skills to help youth succeed in their internship and beyond as they head toward permanent employment. One-on-one counseling with Larkin Street staff offers a safe place for youth to discuss successes and struggles both with the internship and with life. Larkin Street’s staff is constantly making contacts in the local business community to ensure that the variety of internships available matches the diversity of the youth who are selected to participate. Often, Larkin Street’s partners hire their youth interns as regular employees after their internships are completed. Each three-month Institute for HIRE Learning internship offers more than mere income. It offers youth a direction for their lives and a permanent escape from their previous experiences on the street.
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