STRATEGIES & KEY INITIATIVES
Grow Detroit’s Young Talent
Grow Detroit’s Young Talent (GDYT) is a citywide summer jobs program that trains and employs young adults between the ages of 14 and 24 for 6 weeks in July and August.
GDYT job placements are based on a developmentally appropriate, tiered model for summer employment:
- The Career Exploration tier introduces young people to first-time work and career opportunities through community service, team projects, and job shadowing.
- The Ready for Work tier places experienced youth with a host employer or in a vocational training experience, while continuing to build career readiness skills.
- The Career Pathways Internship tier is for young people with work experience have the opportunity to focus on a specific career pathway with a host employer.
2017 at a Glance:
- 8,127 total youth employed in 2017
- 640 youth received industry-led trainings
- 426 youth employed in a career pathway internships
- 112 total employers hired youth
It was really a boot camp – they crammed us with a lot of stuff, and they also plugged us in with jobs. Every day for a whole weekend we had six interviews a day – leave one, go to the next one, so you had to be on it. All the P’s and Q’s. It has really been a journey since I’ve been at VisionIT. I would say, coming from out of high school for my training, it helped me a lot.
–Darell Gates
TechHire; VisionIT