Youth Programs


Summer Jobs/Career Exploration
Summer employment for high school students becomes a meaningful and rewarding experience for the student and the employer in this program that brings together students, mentors, and workplace supervisors.

Foundation Support
Private foundation funding has made it possible for Respond to work with local employers, high school students and adult mentors (upper grade college students and teachers) each summer since 1983 to provide a career based experience that provides each student with a minimum of four or five hours of work experience and mentoring each work day.

Career Development
The program provides well supervised work experiences in career-oriented jobs. Combined with effective job related counseling and employability skills training, this opportunity for students to explore career and vocational paths in both the public and private sectors has proven to be a great benefit to both students and their adult mentors. Many job sites extend employment opportunities to their student(s), after school and on school vacations.

Job Counseling
Each student completes a series of orientation workshops prior to having an interview with an employer and being accepted at a job site. Each student is counseled throughout the program by the program coordinator and their program mentor who visits the job site several times a week and serves as a liaison with the student's job site supervisor.

Celebration
At the conclusion of the program, a closing event provides an opportunity for students, employers and other community partners to be recognized for the work that has been accomplished and the outcomes that have been achieved. Each student receives a certificate of completion and is given a bag of back-to-school essentials. Worksites are awarded plaques of recognition and display them proudly. Some have an impressive wall of awards dating back to the program's beginning in 1984!

Worksites Include:

  • Alston & Calaf Insurance Agency
  • Arline Industries
  • The Battleship New Jersey
  • BDF Industrial Fasteners
  • BPUM Child Care
  • Camcare Health Center
  • Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority
  • Camden Printworks
  • Camden Center for Youth Development
  • Camden Day Nursery
  • Camden Public Libraries
  • Camden Lutheran Housing Corporation
  • Cooper University Hospital
  • Corinne's Soul Food Restaurant
  • Halliday Dance Studio
  • Latin American Economic Development Association
  • La Unique African American Bookstore
  • Office of the Camden County Surrogate
  • Project I.D.E.A. (Institute for the Development of Education in the Arts)
  • Respond, Inc.
  • Rutgers Center for the Arts
  • Walt Whitman Poetry Center
  • Wiggins Park Marina

Contact:
Summer Career Exploration Program
532 State Street
Camden, NJ 08102
856-365-4403; fax 856-541-4478
Summer only: 856-338-0203

Copyright © 2008 Respond Inc. All rights reserved.