Youth Environmental Career Training Program

North East Trees' Youth Environmental Career Training Program provides pre-graduate and post-graduate high school students continuing education and job training in various basic landscape construction, landscape maintenance, arboriculture, and horticulture skills for the purpose of: 1) providing a viable alternative to the local gangs; 2) providing supplementary family income; and 3) providing training that can lead to well paid agency and private industry jobs. The Program consists of five 10 week modules over a 24 month period. Each module will provide a combination of classroom skill-building and hands-on field training for 12 interns. The interns will be drawn from a combination of local high schools and other local community-based intervention programs. Approximately 25% of the student's time will be spent on classroom/office related skills such as basic computer, journal keeping, simple report writing, personal finance, worker and work environment safety, teamwork and personal responsibility skills. The other 75% of their time will be spent in hands-on field experience on existing North East Trees project sites. These project sites will include landscape construction, tree planting, landscape maintenance, plant propagation, water quality measurement and monitoring and tree care sites. Interns will be supervised by trained instructors and crew supervisors. Progress will be measured through the Program attendance records, school attendance records, and performance in the classroom and the field. Job placement and retention following graduation from the program will be another means used to measure progress.NCA/NCF