Empowerment and Leadership for Youth and Young Adults
The Empowerment and Leadership for Youth and Young Adults Program (ELY) is a free job skills training program for out-of-school youth ages 16 to 24 in Marion County.
ELY specializes in providing comprehensive job skills training, career coaching, adult mentoring, paid work experience and career exploration, education re-engagement services, and postsecondary transition assistance in-real-time to opportunity youth.
About ELY
ELY is a holistic program developed using the Positive Youth Development (PYD) Framework. Youth are complex, intelligent individuals with a wide variety of skills, education, and life experiences that they bring to ELY. Youth are respected, treated with dignity and equity, and encouraged to partner with Interface Network to re-engage in education, develop essential job skills, life skills, and access postsecondary education, advanced training, or employment.
The PYD Framework is a research-based theoretical philosophy that believes youth are successful when provided opportunities, experiences, and support that promotes school success, reduction of risky behaviors, and increasing socially valued outcomes, including prosocial behavior, leadership, and resiliency. ELY provides academic, behavioral, and career-oriented learning experiences that positively impact educational achievement and intended outcomes.
To successfully re-engage youth in education and provide abundant career pathways, our program addresses the social, emotional, and health barriers that youth face and centers the impact of socioeconomic factors and disparate life experiences on their ability to work toward their goals.
What Makes ELY Distinct
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Our Philosophy
We believe that developing abilities like resilience, self-awareness, and resourcefulness help young people navigate adolescence in healthy and productive ways that set them up for future success.
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Our Network
We ensure that youth participants have access to all the available resources they need to develop positive and prosocial behavior, complete their secondary education, access advanced training or postsecondary education, and attain job skills and employment. Interface Network has more than 25 years of experience partnering with countless businesses/organizations throughout the Willamette Valley.
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Our Participants
We are committed to expanding opportunities for all youth and young adults. Our program targets ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse youth, whose unique backgrounds and experiences guide all participants to learn, grow, and challenge the status quo.
