When the final bell rings at school, our youth–and their families–are faced with a big decision: how should we spend our summer? Summertime brings free time for our young people. As a community, it is our job to provide students with positive, meaningful opportunities to keep them engaged today and help them prepare for their future.
Investment in young people increases the likelihood they’ll pursue professional goals and creates a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce. By collaborating with workforce development programs in our city, employers can identify and train talent, and youth can explore professional opportunities.
What is Workforce Development?
Something people take for granted is practical job training. Young people may not get real world experiences in school to refine their soft skills, including resume writing, interviewing, and etiquette. They also may not actually see what someone does day-to-day in the workplace.
Workforce development programs give people those experiences. They help people learn and practice the essential skills they need to secure and maintain employment. Workforce development programs that are focused on youth from communities most impacted by violence and justice-involved young people.
What is ProX?
As part of KC Common Good’s mission, we connect high-school-aged young people with professional and educational opportunities. During the summer, we partner with organizations around the city to get our youth employed by local businesses and organizations.
In 2021, we launched Working for Youth, a paid youth summer internship program that placed youth with employers. Since then, we have partnered with ProX, a summer youth jobs and workforce development program in Kansas City.
The ProX summer youth jobs program gives students real-world development and employment: they work 21 hours each week and have four hours per week of professional development. This development is supported by a dedicated coach and mentor. ProX compensates participants with a $1,250 stipend and school credit. Since 2022, more than 1,500 young people from 118 different schools have completed their internship, and more than 150 Kansas City employers have hired ProX interns.
This summer, ProX has more than 750 high-school-aged students placed in summer youth jobs. From engineering and accounting firms to banks and nonprofits, young people across the Kansas City region have a unique opportunity to try their hand at their potential future career––and get paid while they do it.
Our ProX Interns
KC Common Good has hosted summer interns since we started our Working For Youth program in 2021. This summer we were lucky to have five fantastic, curious and confident summer interns from the Kansas City region: Dani, Fiona, Isabella, Jazelle and Lola.
Domestic Violence Research
This summer, our Prox interns took a deep dive into how domestic violence correlates to homicides.
Domestic Violence in Kansas City
As of July 1, 2025, there were 16 homicides directly related to domestic violence. By the same date in 2024, there were just 7. This marks a nearly 130% increase from 2024 to 2025. It is important to note, that this data only includes cases where domestic violence is known. Many domestic violence cases often go unreported because individuals may be unaware that what they’re experience is abuse. Without clear understanding or education about the signs and impact of domestic violence, it can be difficult to seek help or even name the harm.
Presenting the Findings
Our interns presented their research at the final KC 360 meeting of their summer internship. Each of them spoke to the group of more than 90 Kansas City community leaders about the impacts of trauma, signs of domestic abuse, challenges of underreporting, and the intergenerational cycle of violence.
Their presentation centered around two critical questions:
- How can we make it safer for youth to speak up about violence at home?
- What signs of abuse in young people are often overlooked, and why?
The Impacts of Trauma
Experiencing trauma at a young age can have both immediate and lasting effects. It can deeply impact a person’s sense of self, their ability to feel safe, and how they form relationships. Survivors may struggle with feelings of shame, disconnection from their bodies, difficulty recognizing danger, and challenges with trust and intimacy.
Additionally, the impacts of trauma have been studied extensively.
- Children who grow up in violent homes have an increased risk of developing long-lasting trauma symptoms, which can affect their own children’s lives. (Fredland et al. 2015)
- Children who grow up in violent homes have an increased risk of becoming either a victim or a perpetrator of intimate partner violence or a perpetrator of child abuse and neglect in adulthood. (Ketchum & Kim. 2018)
- Parents with a history of child abuse and neglect are three times more likely to maltreat their children than parents without a history of abuse and neglect. (Assink et al. 2018)
Signs of Domestic Abuse in Young People
- Anxiety
- Sleep loss
- Difficulty concentrating
- High activity levels
- Increased aggression
- Increased anxiety about being separated from the parent/extreme worry about their safety or parents
- Physical health problems
- Behavioral problems
- Poor school performance
- Destructive behavior in future relationships
Dedicated Mentors Making a Difference
ProX interns are assigned a mentor and coach to support them and offer personal and professional development opportunities. This summer, our ProX interns were supported by Rashard Dawson.
Rashard is passionate about youth mentorship–something he focused on in his work in youth ministries and later in public policy lobbying. He hates the stigma that young people don’t know what they want to do and believes that the next generation of workers and leaders will do great things for their local communities.
“If there is one thing we know about this younger generation, it is that they are passionate. They are passionate about family and friends; they are passionate about social causes; they are passionate about hobbies; and they are passionate about making a real difference through their work.”
– Rashard Dawson, Dawson Forged Strategies
Rashard also believes that programs like ProX give confidence to the region’s business leaders. By giving youth opportunities to explore future career paths at a young age, companies are able to directly see the future of Kansas City’s workforce. This continues to reassure Kansas City-area businesses that there are people here who are interested in learning how their industries work and seeing future opportunities.
What Does This All Mean?
Each of these students learned about ProX from friends, family, or school. Each year the program grows from the network of people who experience it and want to share that with others.
Dani, Fiona, Isabella, Jazelle, and Lola all had the chance to practice their professional skills while building their network of peers in the program and employers around the city. In their professional development sessions, they learned more about personal and professional finances and were put in scenarios to get them out of their shell, building confidence and essential soft skills that will power how they enter the working world.
And they had the ability to learn and experience all of this while earning money. Having a stipend for the program gives young people a chance to both prepare for the future and provide for themselves or their families today.
Where Do They Go from Here?
Whether they are headed back to high school, to the workforce, to college or even back to the office they just left this summer, they will take the things they learned with them during ProX and share them with others.
We hope that all ProX participants will go on to approach new opportunities with an open mind and make meaningful connections with people from diverse backgrounds. At KC Common Good, our interns reminded us that it is possible to solve large-scale issues and change the status quo––but it takes all of us, including our youth.
Why All Companies Should have ProX Interns
KC Common Good is working to create a peaceful Kansas City by empowering people, aligning partners, and collaborating on long-term innovative actions and investments that improve community safety. That includes everything from addressing gaps in education to domestic violence to healthy food access. Having ProX interns has allowed us to better understand how young people view these issues and how they want to make change.
By hosting ProX interns, businesses are a part of the solution to bridge the gap between education and workforce readiness. Investing in future talent and contributing to workforce development helps create equitable opportunities for young people from diverse backgrounds. Both student and employer applications for summer 2026 will open in early 2026.
The ProX summer youth jobs program has ended, but there are so many other opportunities to keep youth involved in high-quality summer activities. Our partners in KC 360 are hosting events each week to engage our young people. Learn more about upcoming youth events in our community on our community events calendar.
