Schuylkill County Youth Summit

Schuylkill Connects facilitates the Schuylkill County Youth Summit. Students from all area high schools come together to learn about the issues they have identified as essential to address for the county's future. The students go into their communities from the summit with plans on how to move the agenda forward. A Community Advisory Group and a community Jobs Awareness Group support the work of the students.

The Start Of Schuylkill County Youth Summit

In June of 2012, Schuylkill County Commissioner Gary Hess met with Schuylkill County’s VISION to explore ways to address the continued youth outmigration from the county. Through meetings with county youth and community members, a process was determined that would begin the dialogue needed to address this issue. As the Youth Summit has progressed we have been flexible in its design with the intention of making it responsive to needs as they are identified.

What Happens At The Schuylkill County Youth Summit

The initial step was to hear as many youth voices as possible. A survey of over 4,000 high school students revealed that students were most concerned with three areas of life in the county: quality of life, jobs, and public safety. In the last seven years, the Annual Summit day has addressed one of these issues.

The process of the summit includes an annual meeting of our 16 high schools, each of which sends six students. The day is structured for dialogue with community leaders, processing information and selection of action steps. There is an ongoing group of 3-6 students from each high school, our Youth Ambassadors, who meet monthly with the commissioners and others to implement the direction chosen at the last Summit day. In addition there is a community advisory group made up of community leaders who serve as resources and guides for the students. This group includes leaders from most sectors in the county.

Each year the students at the Summit day are taught a new skill for community work. In 2013 students learned how to develop and implement a community project. In 2014 they learned how to hold public discussion and how to design and present a proposal for community improvement to a local borough council. Following this summit, the students held three town hall meetings in various parts of the county to elicit comments and support for their work that year. In 2015 the students engaged a panel of experts to develop solid information about a local issue that affected them, highway vehicle crashes, the number one killer of American teens. This was their first public safety issue. In 2016, the students worked to address blight in their communities, a quality of life issue. Their community projects for the 2016-2017 year will focus on directly addressing blight in some way in their school districts.

Students Attend The Manufacturers' & Employers' Association Career Fair

In addition the youth requested to participate in the Manufacturers’ and Employers’ Association career fair by adding a quality of life component so that students would be aware of not only job opportunities but also the lifestyle benefits of living in Schuylkill County.

The Community Advisory Group also launched an initiative to address job awareness in the county. The group consists of many sectors of the community that offer each other support to build a network that will help students find good jobs in Schuylkill County.