about comes to a close thousands of young people are wrapping up their summer jobs.

The city's one summer Chicago program put 30,000 young people to work doing jobs and transportation, health care and business.

Mayor Brandon Johnson says he's been working to expand the program and increase youth hiring in the city.

Here with more on the benefits and challenges of youth employment are she needed news executive director of the Hope Center Foundation, a community-based organization in Roseland.

Kim Robinson, vice president of workforce development at the Chicago Transit Authority.

And Natasha Smith, Walker executive director of Project Exploration, Science and Technology, Education Organization.

Ladies, thanks all of you for joining Thank you having Should starting with you, please, organization.

You all in play.

25 young people through the program this summer.

How do they support the work that you do with the Hope Center Foundation?

So our mission is really centered around creating pathways to economic mobility.

>> And we do that on the far South side, through housing workforce, development and community revitalization and for the youth in Bozeman.

this is a vital program that is more than just receiving a paycheck.

It gives them employable skills for the workplace, provides financial literacy support for them as well as helps them to build a vision for their future for any of young people that you hired the summer, any of them from Roseland.

All of them are from rolls.

So then they're also I think you're I want to be also getting the opportunity to to build that, to work in their own communities and to to support and build and in their own home.

Absolutely.

And I think that is important for our use to really have the opportunity to live and work in the community that they're in rather than going outside.

>> Of their community to do that Chick-Fil-A is the first restaurant on the far South side, 80% of the people that they employ live in the neighborhood.

And we were at the workforce agency that supported those hiring.

So >> we will continue to do that work as other employers come to act community, especially with the 25 youth that we are working with some of the best and brightest in roles that Roseland has to offer.

>> Kim, the CTA has been a program partner for several years.

How did the youth participation this year compared to previous years?

So that's a great question.

We increased 20% versus last year.

We have historic numbers of over 300 youth for this summer.

And what kind of work are they doing?

So we consider in different tracks.

Definitely a play on words tracks.

Definitely a play on So we have a professional development track where we have our first time in turns to enter branding resume, writing, interviewing way, how work ethic, professionalism and how to work in an environment as a first is the first employee.

We also have what we call dual enrollment.

So we partner with the city colleges of Chicago.

So we have a subset of intern.

So we actually pay to take college courses and they are transferable courses.

So those courses are art ceramics and African-American studies and music Arthur track is our special projects.

What we have mentors from the CTA.

So they work in a specific department within the CTA and then we have a corporate sponsor.

helps us would learn to lead.

So it's a program where they also teach professional development and transferable skills and last but not least we have our ex turn ship.

These are X turns with special needs so we have 5 different tracks that we have a little bit over 300 and turns this year.

We're excited about lots of good experience for them.

Natasha has organization work with young people who are looking for summer jobs.

Sure.

So we are STEM education organization.

We deliver stem education programming and what we've done with the young people.

And we were really fortunate to get all 4 tracks is.

>> Do a little bit of.

Having on people be learning STEM education programming, but the rest of them actually trained deliver stem education programming and partner organizations.

So not only did we work with Park districts, but in the awesome community where we have home hub.

We also worked with 12 other agencies where we actually also served as a delegate and provided them with young people in so for them, it's a little bit of looking at how do you deliver stem education programs, partnering with really amazing stem institutions here in the city of Chicago to be able to train them.

And then them going back into their communities into some Southside locations and delivering those programs as well.

But what some of the training that they're getting.

So I mean, they actually get trained on how to do robotics or marble run.

We all had a purple around.

A lot of my we partnered with Lincoln Park Zoo.

So they also did pop ups across different community areas.

Engineering programs, beauty chemistry.

And so we try to make sure that young people have a really deep breath and depth of around how to do stem education programming.

And so it's also really nice to see learn ERs see themselves in the workforce.

Sinead, what are some of the barriers that young people might experience when they're looking for work?

>> Well, one of the things that we want to make sure is that our youth have the soft skills necessary in the workplace.

A lot of the work that we do is centered around trauma informed some making sure that any of the trauma that they've experienced in and out of the home is addressed so that they're in the workplace, that when they are in the workplace, that those triggers don't affect them, whether it is interaction with other employees or interaction with their So it is very important to teach our people the soft skills necessary to be successful in their careers, whether they are going off to college or they have decided to stay within the confines roles in our Chicago.

All for employment.

And so we are training our next generation of leaders.

They are our future.

And so it also supports just generational poverty and getting them out of that cycle of generational poverty and really being the leaders for their families and households.

That ought to tell me a little more about that and how you think summer youth employment really helps to address the gaps in opportunity.

>> For low-income young people of color.

sorry, sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

That options are here to I think that what this does for young people is it gives some sense of purpose when you really see a young person go through training and be able to see how they've developed along the way, gives them purpose.

It gives some funds in their packets, but it also gives them a bit of inspiration of what they want to do next.

The young people we brought are not necessarily all young people that are like, oh, I want to do stem I want to have a job.

They're all you.

There's variety of young people.

Young people are saying I want to take a chance.

And so our team really develop opportunities and programs and supports for them.

So that you may not have the best experience in in the workforce, but you are going to learn how to actually achieve OK?

Kim, sorry about that before run out of time.

What are some outcomes that you've seen?

We have seen 33% return E and turns we have in terms that are in our program high school and turns in our program for all 3 years and returning back.

We have a summary along college.

>> So the returning back to participate in our college internship.

So a lot of return on investments because we customize our training for them for program.

Me.

We also do college tours and field trips are lot of them.

Lots of extra support.

That after getting.

All right.

That's what we're going to leave it.