Applications are open to help the Mayor's office with youth engagement. Here's how to apply:
Sacramento, CA (Feb. 7, 2023) - Community organizations with expertise in youth engagement are being asked to apply to work with Office of Mayor Darrell Steinberg and the National League of Cities on a series of youth listening sessions to help understand and improve youth job opportunities.
Mayor Steinberg speaks to a group of education and workforce leaders in the Sacramento area about the Youth Excel initiative in Aug. of 2022
The funding comes from the National League of Cities’ Youth Excel Initiative, an effort to improve outcomes for young people who are marginalized from economic success.
“We need partners in the community when it comes to developing career pathways for young people and we also know that we can’t do that without putting in some effort to hear from our young people as well,” said Mayor Steinberg.
Respondents to the Request for Qualifications (RFQ) are asked to demonstrate how they will facilitate youth listening sessions and lead a cohort of Youth Research Analysts that will examine and make recommendations on strategies to improve our local youth workforce ecosystem. The listening sessions will develop and define ways to boost interest “STEM” career pathways, examine how of youth access job training resources and identify barriers youth face when accessing those resources.
Here are the important dates for this application:
Release of RFQ January 26, 2023
Questions Due by: February 17, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. PST
Responses Due by: February 24, 2023 at 4:00 p.m. PST
Qualified Applicant(s) Notified The week of March 13, 2023
To apply and get more details on the application, visit the City of Sacramento’s PlanetBids portal here.
A community-led review panel is being assembled to score the applications and determine the awards.
“Sacramento is home to a ton of great providers, educators, and programs that work with young people to get them ready for the world of work,” said Nicole Cuellar-Nelson, a Senior Policy Advisor for Mayor Steinberg. “We want to better understand how to share and develop opportunities for young people to set them up for success.”
Graphic courtesy of NLC
Sacramento’s effort with the NLC Youth Excel program is particularly focused on STEM career pathways to ensure that our residents are taking full advantage of upcoming job opportunities like Centene, Aggie Square the California Mobility Center, and several new hospitals being built.
“Many young people – particularly youth and young adults who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) – are disconnected from school and the workforce… Too often they face structural barriers to accessing equitable career pathways and quality jobs, particularly in high-demand science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) industries,” according to a release from NLC on the Youth Excel Initiative.
There are five other cities participating in the Youth Excel City Technical Assistance Cohort:
Bridgeport, CT
Houston, TX
Lauderhill, FL
Madison, WI
Saint Paul, MN
This initiative will culminate in a Youth Summit in the Summer of 2023. Sacramento will be looking to bring young people in to shape this system and spread the word about emerging opportunities.
