The following is a transcription of an interview hosted by Solomon Jones WURD with Kim McCaffrey, Senior Vice President of Intermediary Services at JEVS Human Services along with Matt Kerr and Shairah Kibler and Matt Kerr form C2L-PHL summer program Beyond the Bars. If you would like to listen to the radio segment, click here.
Solomon Jones: We are joined this morning by Kim McCaffrey from JEVS, Jewish Educational Vocational Services. Good morning.
Kim McCaffrey: Good morning.
Solomon Jones: Okay, and Matthew Kerr and Shairah Kibler from Beyond the Bars, good morning. Alright, so this summer, a lot of young people are getting some experiences working in various programs. Beyond the Bars is one of them, JEVS of course, is running this effort. What are you guys doing this summer Miss McCaffrey?
Kim McCaffrey: Yeah, there’s so much happening this summer. JEVS is now responsible for the City’s initiative for summer work based learning experiences for young people, predominately those in high school. It’s called Career Connected Learning, C2L-PHL.
Solomon Jones: What is C2L-PHL?
Kim McCaffrey: Career Connected Learning Philadelphia.
Solomon Jones: Okay, go ahead.
Kim McCaffrey: So we’re offering paid work experiences for young folks across the city of Philadelphia, in lots of different industries. It’s really intended to help young people learn about the world of work, what they like, what they don’t like, what they’re good at, what they’re not good at, and how do they start to earn some money doing those things. And so Beyond the Bars has been doing some really great work, and offering what, almost 25-30 opportunities this summer, which has been really exciting.
Solomon Jones: Yeah, so Matthew, we’ve met before. I’ve seen you around as we’ve talked about programs that are working to end gun violence in the City of Philadelphia. Yours is a novel approach. What do you do?
Matthew Kerr: Absolutely, thank you so much. Thank you again for having us. So yeah, Beyond the Bars, we began as a music program back in 2015 but it was just a program for youth who were incarcerated back then. But around 2017 we branched out. We started running community-based music programs, and one of our main initiatives was like, one of two things, basically. One is that it was always student driven, and two was that it was community based. And trough our youth voice, they kind of pushed to build out a lot of different music labs throughout the city and partner with a bunch of amazing community orgs that do what we don’t. And today, we have 45 music labs throughout the city in locations ranging from schools and community hubs to rec centers, but also youth centers and trauma clinics. And from that, we’re able to meet youth wherever they’re at. Also as they grow as musicians and
artists, we meet a lot of amazing young leaders. We’re with one right now, Shairah, when we met her at her high school, was already a nasty musician, but now she’s in our summer program, our student teacher program. Basically, we meet young people all over the city from all of our programs and identify them like, hey they want to help mentor and lead others. They go through an awesome six-week course thank to JEVS, where they learn about how to teach using social emotional learning, how to teach using trauma informed practices, as well as how to, you know, teach instruments, productions, DJ and MCing, all those different things.
Solomon Jones: Well that sounds fantastic, I want to hear from Shirah though. Shairah, what is it that you do? I know you’re interning there at Beyond the Bars, what is it that you do?
Shairah Kibler: So for the summer program, basically, a lot of real cool, amazing, awesome teachers teach us how we can better teach people younger that us how to get into ways of expressing themselves through music and different types of things like that. But once you, I guess you could say graduate fro the program, we get to go out and branch through different rec centers, different after school programs si we can teach what we have learned from these teachers to apply to ourselves in the way we want to learn and teach kids how to make themselves known. We let them know what they can do without being like, hard on them, or like being strictly just one thing, like being able to really show themselves, who they are, to multiple people.
Solomon Jones: Wow that’s fantastic. So, Kim McCaffrey, what other programs do you guys have in the minute or two we have left?
Kim McCaffrey: We’re actually supporting almost 8,000 young people this summer across the city. So you have young folks who are in other arts programs, you have folks in marketing programs, entrepreneurship programs, in civic engagement programs, construction, basically if you name the job, we have young people doing it this summer. We will be continuing some of these programs into the school year, so definitely check us out at Philla.gov/C2L-PHL to learn more and potentially get yourself connected.
Solomon Jones: Okay, and is there a way for people to apply for what’s going on in the school year?
Kim McCaffrey: Yeah, so young people will be able to apply directly to the non-profits that are offering these programs. So definitely keep an eye on the website, and we will push out these opportunities as the programs get started. Most programs will start for the school year around October.
Solomon Jones: Cool, now is there a number people can call, or do they have to go to the website and do it electronically?
Kim McCaffrey: They will have to go to the website.
Solomon Jones: And the website again, is phila.gov/C2L-PHL. So Beyond the Bars, how do we learn more about it? Is there a phone number Matthew, and a website? Matthew Kerr: Absolutely, thank you so much. Yeah, our website is www.BeyondTheBarsMusic.org and the phone number is 267-225-7247. We have tons of programs, always plenty of openings for awesome
young people to be making music. And actually, tomorrow night, we have our student teacher graduation show at Underground Arts. It’s totally free, so you can see a lot of awesome young people perform, play some amazing music, as well as get celebrated for the awesome leaders that they are.
Solomon Jones: Alright, well I want to thank you so much for that. Kim McCaffrey, I want to thank you, Matthew, as well as Shairah Kibler form Beyond the Bars. Kim McCaffrey from JEVS. Thank you all for joining us this morning on WURD and for sharing the great work that you do.
From Workforce Development to Career and Technical Education, Community Living and Home Support, and JEVS Care at Home, JEVS’ programs work together to help people meet their goals. 
Whether you’re passionate about providing support to individuals with disabilities, working with youth, or helping adults achieve their career goals, there’s a place for you at JEVS. Become part of a team dedicated to making a positive impact on the lives of others.