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l] Project Director has been attending meetings of the Foster Youth Breakthrough Collaborative since 2009. Since several project employees are former emancipated foster youth from Orange County, we will have staff on hand uniquely qualified to assist foster youth interns. Probation Youth: The "Seeds to Trees Digital Media Academy" program plans to recruit youth who are on probation through our partnership with the Orange County Probation Department. We have had tremendous success with probation youth community service volunteers. Forty to fifty probation youth volunteer at the library annually, and ten to fifteen of those remain as volunteers after their service hours are completed. We are currently piloting a program specifically aimed at probation youth that includes workshops on adolescent behavior and attitudes and how they resonate in a student's life, as well as classes in needed academic subjects. Youth with Disabilities: Youth with physical disabilities will be welcome in the program, as will youth with mild learning disorders. Youth with severe cognitive disabilities will find the educational components of the program too demanding. With space in the program limited, it is necessary to offer the training only to those who can benefit from it. Among the youth served by the Santa Ana Public Library, there are a number of barriers associated with poverty preventing the achievement of short and/or long term goals. The most common barrier as concluded by the TABE test is basic skills deficiency. Student results indicate that a majority of students are performing at or below an equivalency of 8.9 grade level. These students often have difficulties in the completion of their education, since they are likely to fall behind in semester credits and in turn eventually drop out of high school. A second common barrier is poor work history. Students with poor work history are at least 19 years of age and have never had a full-time job. As students continue to search for opportunities in a competitive job market, they have fewer opportunities with limited education and work experience. Many of the youth do not have reliable transportation to and from school or to the place of employment. As a result it causes an attendance and/or punctuality issue. Many of the students do not have professional clothing readily available for employment interviews or professional events. These barriers are often setbacks for students. V. State the Solution The Seeds to Trees program is supports students by providing resources, knowledge and/or informational tools to find personal connections for educational and local workforce opportunities. Throughout the program, students will have the opportunity of attending media arts instruction with the implementation of a curriculum similar to college eoursework. Students will attend or partake in various activities to enhance their educational, employment and life skills. Mentorship has always been a cornerstone of the Santa Ana Public Library's Teen (12-18) and Young Adult (18-24) programming, and thus it will be a cornerstone of the "Seeds to Trees Digital Media Academy" program as well. All program participants will be assigned a Tutor Mentor, who they will meet with individually on a weekly basis for 30 minutes as part of their on -the job training. They will discuss the progress of their vocational and on -the job training as well as any additional educational tutoring and support service needs that they may have. Tutor Mentors will provide the necessary resources to meet their mentees' needs (Please see attachment M for a list of resources). Tutor Mentors will also schedule their mentees' tutoring time at this meeting. In addition to mentoring from their assigned Tutor Mentors, interns will also receive mentorship on their particular production projects from project mentors. "These Project Mentors will be responsible for helping interns develop and produce content for programming on specific topics. (Please See EXHIBIT A