Camden County

Since the pandemic took hold of the nation and the world, school districts everywhere saw truancy skyrocket and, in many cases, stay challenging high. This is especially true in urban landscapes, and Camden City was not immune to these national trends. At any given time, the Camden City School District had more than 800 students who disappeared during virtual learning and became disengaged from positive social activities and traditional educational resources.

To combat this influx of high school-aged students who had shown a propensity to be vulnerable to becoming a victim of crime or committing a crime, Camden County, led by the Youth Services Commission, Camden Community Partnership, The Rowan-Rutgers Joint Board of Governors, City of Camden, Camden City School District and the Camden County Police Department, have explored different options to engage these members of our community. From that, a program was created in 2024 to refocus our collective energies back into the neighborhoods of the city. The number one tool to address it was creating a direct access point of resources for youth in a workforce training program with reachable goals and attainable objectives. A program that will pay them to attend, provide transportation, and, most importantly, provide them with the certification and job training skills that will propel them into a brighter future.

Based on research from the Office of Public Affairs, we found a highly successful model out of Boston in its robust summer youth employment program. That said, we needed to do more than just provide employment; we needed to teach new skill sets that would make these youth and young adults marketable in today’s job market. The answer for our community was to partner with a nonprofit in Camden City called Hopeworks, which initially secured 50 seats in their nationally renowned organization to host our youth in a special truancy program.

Over the course of 2024, from the outset of the program in May, Camden City saw a significant reduction in violent crime, and homicides came crashing down to their lowest level since 1985. Also, shootings and most property crimes were lowered as well. This was based on a variety of initiatives, but it is without question this new program played a role in the precipitous drop.

What started out as an idea over a cup of coffee is changing, in some cases, saving lives for the youth and young adults of Camden City.

Prior to 2024, we had seen the city’s crime rate rise with a direct correlation back to this cohort of youth who are truant. The team concluded, based on other models, specifically in Boston and other cities, that there is a measured reduction in crime with robust job opportunities for youth. Based on that, Hopeworks has been providing these tech-based job training services for years in Camden City and now in Philadelphia with a striking measure of success. Furthermore, the principal of Hopeworks, Dan Rhoton, has created a program for our youth that includes transportation, a life coach, academic support, career readiness, a paid wage and permanent job placement. And, of course, in job training programming, retention rates are always something that has been scrutinized, which is again why Hopeworks is a perfect partner in the fact that more than 93% of their students stayed for a 12-month period.

Starting out and tracking the first 50 placements that Dan has generously made available to our team allowed us to track the success of the initiative. According to our last monthly report, our retention rate from our original class is 93.1%. Now, we are operating in month 10, and we have 63 kids in the program that would have otherwise been out on the streets. Given Hopework’s focus on tech-based jobs, this initiative is making a demonstrable difference in the city, and what started out as an idea over a cup of coffee is changing, in some cases, saving lives for the youth and young adults of Camden City.