Billie Brown knows about youth unemployment.

As the founder and owner of a temporary staffing agency that she began almost 16 years ago, she regularly sees young adults who cannot get work because they lack skills, have a felony record or never earned a high school diploma.

Dismayed at how little was being done to help them, Ms. Brown and her company, Excel Management Services, have teamed with Saint Paul’s Baptist Church to try to make a dent in the problem.

Together, the partners have created Success by 25 to help unemployed 17- to 20-year-olds get life-changing academic help, skills training and placement in jobs.

Launched in September, Success by 25 plans to enroll 125 young people in its first 12 months and has been awarded a $900,000 grant from the Capital Region Workforce Partnership to support the effort. CRWP uses federal funds to operate three area workforce centers to help people find jobs. CRWP hired Success by 25 to replace a previous contractor for youth services.

The program already has enrolled its first 31 students and is still working with 40 enrollees who started with the previous youth contractor. In December, at least 30 new enrollees will start, with new participants being added every three months.

Next week, Ms. Brown, her staff and current program participants will hold a public information session to get the word out about the new effort. The session will take place from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 18, at Saint Paul’s Baptist Church — Belt Boulevard Campus, 700 E. Belt Blvd., across from Southside Plaza in South Side.

“Youth unemployment is a huge problem in the Richmond region,” Ms. Brown noted. People in the 17 to 20 age group represent the largest and fastest growing segment of the impoverished, she said.

“Nearly half of our youths in that age cohort are unemployed,” she said, with the highest unemployment rate among African-American youths in the CRWP service area that includes Richmond and Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, New Kent and Powhatan counties.

Ms. Brown said the goal of Success by 25 is to place participants in jobs that would enable them to be self-supporting and that would open the door to careers. To do that, she said each participant will be able to earn certified training in such areas as health care, manufacturing, hospitality and retail and computer technology. That training would enable them to become pharmacy technicians, handle medical billing, weld, drive a forklift, cook in a restaurant or work for a hotel, Ms. Brown said.

The training will be through courses currently provided by J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College and Richmond’s Workforce Innovation Center, among others.

In addition, those who need to finish high school are taking online courses to satisfy diploma requirements through an adult high school based in Richmond’s North Side called Dream Academy.

Ms. Brown said she is using experience with her company to handle the employment piece. A separate nonprofit she set up earlier, Another Chance to Excel (ACE), is providing enrollees with programs on life skills and workforce readiness to ensure they are prepared to be in the workforce.

Finally, Saint Paul’s Baptist, through a nonprofit affiliate called Nia, is providing mentoring and crucial transportation to enable students to get back and forth to various courses. Nia also is handling the administration of the grant, Ms. Brown said.

In order for Success by 25 to be rated a success, CRWP is requiring that at least 55 percent of those enrolled have jobs paying $8 to $10 an hour after one year.

“We want to do better than that.” Ms. Brown. “We want every one of our enrollees to be employed.”