Youth Services
Vision "All youth, particularly those most in need, will acquire the necessary skills to successfully transition into further education, training, careers and adulthood."
Youth Program Principles
  • Provide a single funding stream for all local areas, in addition to resources for areas with high poverty and unemployment
  • Responsibility for design placed under guidance of the local Youth Council
  • Strong business involvement
  • Moves from one-time, short-term interventions to consolidated approach
  • Features a broad array of youth
Youth Provider

Hawaii National Guard
"About Face" Out-of-School Program

This program is offered to disadvantaged youth, ages 16-21, who are no longer attending school. The program begins with a two-week class using a curriculum that is specifically designed to address work readiness and occupational skills and to prepare the youth for work experience and job placement. These goals are addressed and met through interactive training modules, followed by actual participation in work experience. This approach allows the participants to not only receive training in employability skills, but also begin to immediately apply those skills in the workplace.

Curriculum includes:
  • Pre-employment Work Maturity Skills
  • Career Exploration
  • Working Basics Life Skills
  • Work Experience

For additional information and program eligibility contact:

About Face
Lahea Salazar, Program Manager
4670 Kahau Rd
Kapaa, HI 96746
(808) 823-6077   fax: (808) 645-6821
lsalazar@paxen.com
Kama‘āina Careers
For years, Kaua‘i has watched as many of its children leave the island for the mainland to get an education, and, not finding enough opportunity at home, they stay on the mainland.
Appropriately dubbed "Kama`aina Come Home," the program was developed over a decade ago as a grassroots collaboration of the Economic Development Boards, as a means of increasing the state’s labor pool by targeting Hawaii college students and expatriates living in the continental U.S. to return to Hawaii.
This program has become a successful pathway home for many expatriates. A partnership effort between County of Kaua‘i, Office of Economic Development and Kama`aina Careers, a Hawaii job referral company based on the West Coast, has taken the program on the road.
Kama‘āina Careers attend various job fairs and college events across the United States and attendees get an overview of the economy and workforce trends in Hawaii, hear about the specific needs on each of the islands, and learn about resources available to help them search for jobs.
The program has been successful in bringing qualified kama‘aina back to the Islands and in doing so, reuniting families.

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