MEANINGFUL work - VALUABLE EXPERIENCE - TANGIBLE REWARDS
The purpose of the Florida Department of Transportation's Youth Work Experience Program is to provide an opportunity for young men and women of the State of Florida to obtain public service work and training experience that protects and conserves the valuable resources of the state and promotes participation in other community enhancement projects.
Since 2005, Twin Oaks Juvenile Development, Inc. has partnered with the Florida Department of Transportation to provide youth with an opportunity to gain real world work experience in a manner that facilitates prompting, redirection, and feedback from a supervisor in a controlled environment. This approach allows youth to practice appropriate workplace skills and behaviors in an environment that embraces sub-par performance as teachable moments. The work environment created mimics that of a real world setting which includes delegation of responsibilities, accountability, productivity and efficiency.
In order to accomplish the goals of this project, Twin Oaks not only employs job-specific experienced individuals to serve as crew leaders, we also ensure that they are equipped with the characteristics and skill set of a teacher/instructor. This crew leader formally evaluates the youth daily, providing feedback that can be incorporated into external evaluation systems such as the supervision plans and credit earning courses in high school.
Through this project youth have an opportunity to gain valuable job readiness skills and work experience, while also fulfilling their restorative justice obligations of community service, court costs, and restitution. After each daily participation, the youth earn a stipend that is used to pay their financial obligations to the court. Program staff, in cooperation with the youth’s juvenile probation officer, make payments directly to the local court system on behalf of the youth. Once the youth’s obligations have been met, the payment of the stipend will go directly to the youth for transition related expenses.
DURING THE 2018-2019 PROGRAM YEAR
348
youth participated in the program
$184,968
was earned by participants to pay off their restitution and court costs
contact us
Youth Work Experience Program
2930 Kerry Forest Parkway, Suite 101
Tallahassee, FL 32309
(850) 536-6225 phone