Description
The Department of the Interior Youth Initiative is a focused effort to expand programs that engage, educate and employ youth from all backgrounds in exploring, connecting with, and preserving the shared natural and cultural resources on public lands. As part of this initiative, the Department aims to increase youth employment through its use of youth hiring authorities; leveraging partnerships; using a proactive targeted recruiting approach to build new environments and engage a talented corps of young people; and providing hands-on, meaningful work experiences. The purpose of the Department⿿s employment efforts is to create the Next Generation of Conservation Leaders. OR/WA BLM aims to support the national goals by providing meaningful work opportunities for hundreds of young people so that they have a positive experience that directly contributes to conservation and that have lasting impacts on our Nation. The OR/WA BLM is seeking to partner with youth corps organizations throughout Oregon which serve young people from all backgrounds with a special emphasis on local youth working in their local communities. The meaningful work experience we are looking to provide includes: Well supervised; Hands-on tasks, Work that advances our mission; Include some compensation, preferably a salary; Long enough to be at a minimum of eighty (80) hours, ideally longer; and offers quality learning opportunities among our participating youth. Since 2010, OR/WA BLM Youth employment goals have been achieved largely through the continued implementation of the statewide Assistance Agreement with Oregon Youth Conservation Corps (OYCC), a state agency under the Department of Community Colleges and Workforce Development responsible for working with all the youth corps organizations operating in Oregon. This partnership has resulted in a streamlined system for 1) allocating youth corps funds evenly across Oregon, 2) reaching numerous individual youth corps organizations operating throughout the State - including school, tribal, youth offender, and nonprofit organization crews, and 3) providing meaningful work to local youths in all 9 Oregon BLM Districts. The OYCC is a State agency, charged by the Legislature with the responsibility to protect, conserve, rehabilitate and improve the natural, historical and cultural resources of Oregon; and to increase educational, training and employment opportunities for youth, for the purpose of improving work skills, instilling work ethic and increasing employability ⿿ all of which are mutual goals of the Federal government. Working together, OR/WA BLM and OYCC have furthered the Department of the Interior⿿s Youth Initiative employment goals while also building social skills such as tolerance of diversity, team work, social responsibility, appreciation of the environment and personal development such as improved self-esteem. The OYCC Summer Conservation Corps (SCC) was established by the Oregon Legislature in 1987, to provide a program to increase education, training and employment opportunities for Oregon youth. The OYCC is able to facilitate strong connections between the youth corps organizations and the BLM to achieve positive work experiences, work skills, personal responsibility, commitment to education and future employment for youth. The objective of this program is to partner with an agency or organization that has the ability to coordinate separate summer youth employment programs within each of the OR/WA BLM⿿s 9 Oregon Districts in order to serve young people from all backgrounds with a special emphasis on local youth working in their local communities. These summer youth employment programs are to provide Oregon youth, including underserved populations, with meaningful, paid work opportunities, on public lands within their local community in order to instill a sense of shared stewardship, and provide them with education about the importance of public land resources while developing their skills for engaging in outdoor activities in a safe and low impact manner and increasing their awareness and application of conservation ethics.