Overview
The Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program (YESS Program) aims to provide funding to organizations to deliver a range of activities to support young Canadians (aged 15 to 30) to develop the skills and gain the experience they need to find and keep quality jobs. Programming focuses on youth facing multiple barriers to employment. This includes a focus on inclusive skills and employment programming for youth with disabilities.
The YESS Program will provide up to $5M per year in funding to organizations to support youth employment activities.
Eligible Organizations
Eligible recipients for this Call for Proposals include:
- Not-for-profit organizations (including registered charities, voluntary organizations, and foundations)
- Municipal governments
- Indigenous organizations (including band council, tribal councils, and self-government entities)
- For-profit organizations (provided that the nature and intent of the funded activity is non-commercial and not intended to generate a profit)
- Public health, educational and cultural institutions
- Provincial and territorial governments, institutions, agencies, and Crown Corporations.
Eligible Projects
- Directly serve youth furthest from employment
- Assist youth to gain the skills, tools, information, or work experience needed to transition into the labour market or return to education
- Engage with employers to inform the design of programming or facilitate successful conditions and opportunities for quality work experiences for youth facing barriers
- Utilize, or clearly articulate how the organization will work towards using an intake mechanism to determine how to address employment barriers faced by each youth participant
- Provide participants with access to individualized, wrap-around supports
Eligible Activities
Proposals could include the following activities:
- Activities designed to enable stakeholders to develop and plan eligible projects
- Activities that support the development and use of tools and products for learning, skills development, career planning and career development
- Service activities, which include but are not limited to outreach, client assessment, case management, career development information, and job search and job retention assistance
- Activities designed to enable youth to acquire and enhance skills, which include but are not limited to pre-employability skills, employability skills and advanced employability skills
- Activities designed to provide work experiences
- Activities designed to provide wrap-around services to support youth employment needs, such as mentoring and coaching
- Activities designed to support youth entrepreneurs gain self-employment
- Activities that support youth in making informed career decisions, promote the value of education, and promote youth as the labour force of the future
- Activities designed to support research and innovative projects to identify better ways of helping youth prepare for, return to, and keep employment and to be productive participants in the labour force
- Activities related to measuring and articulating the impact of the program
- Activities to support employers in hiring or retaining youth facing barriers
- Activities designed to build better linkages between organizations (for example, by linking employers, service providers, unions, industry associations, educational institutions, and other levels of government) for the benefit of youth
- Culturally appropriate Indigenous supports such as access to networks and Indigenous social services (for example, healing centres, counselling, healthcare, shelters, resource centres, restorative justice)
- Activities associated with meeting the reporting requirements of the YESS Program
- Other activities that support the objectives of the YESS Program
Ineligible projects and activites:
- Projects consisting of activities that take place outside of Canada
- Partisan political activities
- Activities that contribute to the provision of a personal service to the organization
- Fundraising activities to cover salary costs for the youth participant
- Projects or activities that:
- restrict access to programs, services, or employment, or otherwise discriminate, contrary to applicable laws, on the basis of prohibited grounds, including sex, genetic characteristics, religion, race, national or ethnic origin, colour, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression
- advocate intolerance, discrimination or prejudice
- actively work to undermine or restrict a woman's access to sexual and reproductive health services
For more information visit: Youth Employment and Skills Strategy Program - Youth Focused Projects - Funding Program - Canada.ca
