New Haven Independent

Coordinator Stephanie Barnes said the program, called Youth @ Work, offers first-time work experience — and a sense of shared responsibility — to city teens who might otherwise spend the summer idly.

“It’s work-based learning,” she said at Thursday’s official launch. “The lessons [kids] learn on the job will carry them forward to the future.”

Kids who sign on for the summer get concrete rewards in exchange for their hard work. Anyone under 16 receives a $100 stipend each week; those 16 and up are paid minimum wage. But there are also less quantifiable results, such as improved self-confidence and better performance at school.

“Many youths who work during the summer have better attendance at school,” Barnes said. “Coupled with their school interests, [summer work] enables them to narrow their post-high school goals, be it a two-year college, professional training or a four-year degree.”

Youth @ Work aims to place 1,200 young adults aged 15-19 in a variety of professional sectors, ranging from day camps to law firms to the Yale-New Haven Hospital. In 2006, the program attracted 981 students. Barnes said she is confident of an improvement this year because of an unexpected boost in federal funding.

On their first day working at the Harris & Tucker Center, an arts entertainment day camp on Newhall Street, red-shirted counselors directed an improv theater session with young children. Gathered in a circle, they acted out different roles in a court scene. Jayla Manning, 9, was the judge.

The lawyer, unsurprisingly, proved unpopular.

Asked what she got out of her job at the camp, Jasmin Webb said she enjoyed working with kids. Being a counselor gave her a sense of personal responsibility, she said.

“I’ve been involved with kids almost all my life,” she said. “It’s extremely important. [The work] taught me how to handle personal responsibilities.”

Another employee, Jonathan White, 17, said the Youth @ Work program had “taken him in” and given him his first job. He stressed the fact that summer employment kept him off the streets and out of trouble.

“A lot of my friends aren’t working. They’re just hanging out in the streets,” he said. There, “you don’t have to go looking for trouble. Trouble finds you.”

The Harris & Tucker camp, a small brick building perched on the corner of Newhall and Goodrich, provides a stimulating setting to kids who are interested in the media and performing arts. Camp Director Kim Harris said she was preparing a 4-minute movie with the campers on the theme of nursery rhymes. The official score has yet to be released, but “Hey Diddle, Diddle” and “Little Red Riding Hood will surely be featured, she said.

As for the script, counselors will help the kids come up with a story idea and then put it on paper — just like in Hollywood. Harris, for one, isn’t jealous of the big shots in Tinseltown.

“We gave our own Hollywood hub,” she said, “right here in New Haven.”