Conclusion
The Train for Trades program at Choices for Youth provides an excellent model for community organizations to look to when planning their own youth homelessness initiatives. No matter the size of the community, the issue of youth homelessness exists and innovative approaches are needed to help solve it. This toolkit provides an example of how to move forward to address this critical issue.
If we truly want to end youth homelessness then we need to move beyond shelters and look at a more holistic approach, including education, employment and housing. Providing life skills and job skills training helps prepare a young person developmentally to be able to live and thrive independently.
We encourage you to see this case study as a starting point. Read, review, pull it apart and reassemble to create the program that will best serve your young people and your location. We hope that you benefit from the ideas and the collected resources to get your program up and running quicker and more efficiently.