2013 Annual Report Youth Employment Services YES CELEBRATING 45 YEARS 1968-2013 Work this way 2013 | ANNUAL REPORT | Youth Employment Services YES MISSION AND VISION 4 Contents BOARD CHAIR & PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 6 YES PROGRAMS AND SERVICES 9 A PASSION FOR FASHION 10 BIZSTART, EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, JOB CENTRAL 11 JOB CAMP 12 ONTARIO WORKS, STREETS TO JOBS, YOUTH COLLABORATION, YESABILITY 13 YES STUDENT SERVICES 14 YES CLIENT PROFILE NUMBERS 16 YES ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS 18 OUR DONORS 22 OUR FUNDERS 23 OUR VOLUNTEERS 24 BOARD OF DIRECTORS, ADVISORY BOARD 25 YES STAFF 26 YES IN THE MEDIA 27 FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 28 Photography provided by YES BizStart client, Pavel Kounine www.pavelkounine.com WORK THIS WAY 3 Photos are of YES clients from 2012-2013 year. Our Mission Photography provided by YES BizStart client, Pavel Kounine www.pavelkounine.com Photos are of YES clients from 2012-2013 year. YES believes employment is empowerment and the cornerstone of safe and healthy communities. YES leads the Canadian youth sector with innovative programs that empower disadvantaged and vulnerable youth to become self-sufficient contributing members of society. Our Vision: 2013 | ANNUAL REPORT | Youth Employment Services YES Board Chair and President’s Message As we celebrate our 45th anniversary this year we are proud of our exemplary record of finding jobs for disadvantaged youth. Young people from every corner of Toronto and the GTA find their way to YES looking for a chance to improve their lives. “Work This Way” the theme of our new outreach campaign, points to our success as the employment champion for youth for the past 45 years and beyond. Our experience speaks for itself. Our programs work. Highlights of our 2012-2013 8,000 young people used our programs last year Performance are: alone. Our success is 83% in jobs, training, and education outcomes. We continue to celebrate the • We helped 3,800 individuals. opportunity to contribute to the well-being of young • We had 6,194 clients in all of our programs and people and to the economic strength of Toronto. Our a further 1,806 students who attended our job reputation is strong, our results excellent. search workshops either at YES or in their high school for a total of 8,000 clients. For 45 years we have been tireless advocates for youth employment. We take pride in the fact that • We achieved 82.8% combined success in all the new provincial government under the leadership programs. 68% obtained a job, 8% returned to of Kathleen Wynne selected YES as the location to school, 6.8% enrolled in a training program. announce a new 2013 Youth Jobs Strategy. Of those clients who got a job, 77.5% were still on the job three months later. On April 29, 2013 Premier Kathleen Wynne chose • We introduced two new programs to better YES to announce the governments intention assist our youth. Thanks to SEDI and the TD to create 30,000 new jobs for youth over the Bank we received funds to deliver Financial next two years. We applaud this leadership and Literacy training to 200 young people over remain confident that YES will have a role to play the next two years. in the government’s strategy. Premier Wynne was • We also designed and implemented YESAbility, accompanied by Charles Sousa, Minister of Finance, a new program in partnership with the Provincial Brad Duguid, Minister of Training, Colleges and Ministry of Community and Social Services to Universities, Teresa Piruzza, Minister of Children and help disabled students find part time jobs. Youth Services, Reza Moridi, Minister of Research and Innovation. It was a wonderful visit from the • We continued to have a robust media presence Premier and her Ministers who spent a good portion with over 22 interviews and stories in all major of the day talking to our young job seekers and print, radio, TV and online media. President entrepreneurs. Nancy Schaefer was a guest panelist on TVO’s The Agenda program with Steve Paikin The government has recognized that the economy discussing solutions to the problem of high remains weak. We applaud all efforts to help more youth unemployment. YES’s profile and brand young people achieve their dreams of employment recognition is substantially increased by the and careers. YES has also strengthened our frequency of our coverage and appearances in leadership role this past year. Our achievements the media. And it helps to raise public were strong. awareness on the issue and funds to operate our programs. 6 WORK THIS WAY 2013 | ANNUAL REPORT | Youth Employment Services YES • We launched a new outreach and marketing It is challenging for us to address the urgent and campaign entitled “Work This Way” to spread the complex needs of our young clients while at the word amongst young people where they can go same time experiencing a decline in our revenue. to find a job. The images throughout this We lost 6% of our funding last year resulting in 200 Annual Report reflect the campaign. Look for fewer young people able to access our programs. our ads on the TTC. However, our 3-year Strategic Plan, entitled • We created a new website and introduced “Survive, Strengthen, Lead” addresses this state of additional technologies such as free WiFI, affairs and guides us toward a stronger organization texting, and Smart Boards. Clients can register able to withstand the uncertainties of change. online, search our job postings and use Facebook to follow our hiring events and jobs. YES is an outstanding organization; we were the first youth employment organization in Canada founded • We enhanced our social media presence, by The Rotary Club of Toronto in 1968. We celebrate increasing our Likes on Facebook by 203% over our 45th anniversary and thank all those who the previous year with 3,001 Likes. 8 of 10 have made our journey a success and an essential of our most popular posts on Facebook are service to the young people of our city. job postings. We have 925 Twitter Followers with 1,295 Tweets last year, an increase In summary, we thank our Board of Directors and of 89% over the previous year. those new Directors who joined this year, Luzita • We introduced a Code of Conduct and Ethics Kennedy, Susie Hendrie and Lawrence Foerster. Alert hotline, leading practices to reduce the Under the capable leadership of our new Chair, risk of fraud or unethical behaviour. Lincoln Caylor, the Board strengthened our governance practices including a Code of Conduct • We hosted a visit and press conference by Policy and an Ethics Alert Hotline. Premier Kathleen Wynne and were able to showcase our client programs. We express our appreciation and thanks to our staff and volunteers for contributing to the success Notwithstanding our remarkable achievements, of our programs. We thank our donors, foundations, last year presented challenges. The tragic and corporations, The Rotary Club of Toronto and the violent death of two of our young people who had Federal, Provincial and Municipal governments been enrolled in programs, underscored for us the for their ongoing support. Thank you all for helping heartbreaking lives of many and the suffering of us during these past 45 years serving the youth families and communities. Our staff naturally felt of Toronto. shock and distress. Lincoln Caylor Nancy Schaefer Chair, President, YES Board of YES Directors WORK THIS WAY 7 YES Programs and Services Photography provided by YES BizStart client, Pavel Kounine www.pavelkounine.com Photos are of YES clients from 2012-2013 year. 2013 | ANNUAL REPORT | Youth Employment Services YES Getting Young People To Work Participants in all YES programs receive help with transportation, voicemail, and access to computer labs, job fairs and labour market information. Some of these programs also include meals for youth, work appropriate clothing and tools. A Passion For Fashion YES has teamed up with Toronto Fashion Incubator “Through this program, we made so many great (TFI) to create an opportunity for 158 youth to connections to other new entrepreneurs as learn about entrepreneurship and fashion design. well as mentors. The other participants in the The program focuses on youth living in priority program were motivated and driven and it was neighbourhoods. With celebrity volunteer instructors inspiring to be in a group of people who are in the fashion business and with YES staff youth all working hard to make a career out of doing learn how to create a business plan, and launch a what they love.” business or career in the fashion industry. “We have already started implementing what “A Passion for Fashion was extremely helpful we learned in the program and can’t wait to see for us in figuring out how to make a business where that will take us with our business!” plan and how we fit into the Canadian fashion industry. The fashion workshops, with guest – Tara and Courtney Neray, instructors from the industry were very Slashpile Designs informative about how the fashion industry Fashionista’s Den Competition works. It was also extremely inspiring to hear 2013 Winners the experiences of people who persevered and became successful in fashion, even though they started out just like us.” Fashionista’s Den 2013 (from left to right): Susan Langdon, TFI Jennifer MacGowan, Ministry of Economic Development, Trade and Employment (MEDTE) Sam Boonstra, Director, Entrepreneurship Branch, MEDTE Courtney Neray, Slashpile Joan Spence, Senior Policy Advisor, Entrepreneurship Branch, MEDTE Tara Neray, Slashpile Nancy Schaefer, President, Youth Employment Services YES Richard Healy, VP, Youth Employment Services YES 10 WORK THIS WAY 2013 | ANNUAL REPORT | Youth Employment Services YES Employment Service Employment Service provides employment services for all job seekers, including students.