Philadelphia Youth Network

With the vision of alleviating poverty and promoting equity through education and employment, pyn has a particular focus on better serving Youth who face systemic barriers to accessing these programs. To this end, pyn's core programs include summer, school-year and year-round programs and citywide initiatives that, combined, provided more than 15,500 education and employment opportunities in fy20. Pyn redesigned its hallmark programs, workready summer and e3, to increase access and equity in 2019. When the pandemic hit in march 2020, pyn pivoted with partners to include digital experiences for young people in addition to safe in-person experiences to learn and prepare for careers.

As a strategic consultant, pyn seeks to share our best practices and provide resources and tools that grow our capacity in other communities. As an example, pyn has worked with detroit, mi to support their summer jobs program, growing detroit's young talent. Throughout the year, pyn learns and shares best practices with other communities through conferences, presentations and trainings across the united states. Pyn has shared experiences, tools and resources to help enhance Youth workforce development initiatives both in Philadelphia and other communities. Pyn can provide support to other communities looking to enhance Youth employment programs through: technology and training, assessing funding strategies, programmatic implementation, strategic workflow assessment and planning, and partner and program alignment.

Pyn strives to discover best practices in Youth development and strive for continuous learning and improvement. Pyn operated pilot programs and partnerships that informed shifts in system-wide programs and services. In fy20, nearly 100 young people participated in pilot programs, including a digital career exposure program that informed the pivot to include digital experiences to in workready summer 2020. Learnings in other pilots also informed the newly designed e3 services to include individualized supports to help young people succeed, as well as supports for priority populations that face additional barriers to opportunity.