Internship offers jobs for students with disabilities

http://btop.courierpress.com/news/2010/feb/09/work-study/

Program Helps Students w/ disabilities get jobs

BOONVILLE, Ind. — In many ways, Margaret Uhde, Laura Hartig, Andrew Embry and Hajira Mufti are like any other employees at St. Mary's Warrick Hospital.
They spend every weekday at the facility doing whatever needs to be done. It might involve filing papers, making deliveries, doing laundry or any number of other tasks.

But as high school seniors with various disabilities, the four students needed a way into the hospital to get that valuable, on-the-job experience.
A new partnership between the hospital, the Gibson-Warrick-Pike Special Education Cooperative and Southern Indiana Resource Solutions is making the endeavor possible.

St. Mary's Warrick Project SEARCH is based on a nationally recognized program developed at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

It provides adults aged 18-21 with unpaid internship experience in preparation for full-time, real-world employment in the future.

"Hopefully it's been a positive experience for the interns, but it's been a positive experience for St. Mary's as well," said Carol Godsey, administrator of the Boonville hospital.

Uhde, Hartig and Embry are students at Boonville High School and Mufti is a student at Castle High School. They are the program's first four students; organizers say the program will be able to accommodate 10 or so.

Each day, the students — who are all on nondiploma tracks at their high schools — have a fairly set agenda.

It includes an hour of classroom instruction about employability and independent living skills, two hours of job rotations, lunch, two more hours of job rotations and a final hour of classroom instruction.

Students spend time working in medical records, environmental and custodial services, dietary and nutrient services, health information management, mail room and delivery, data entry and more.

Those who spend an academic year in Project SEARCH leave with a detailed portfolio of their work experiences. It includes pictures, recognitions and letters of recommendation that the students can show employers.

Funding for Project SEARCH comes from Vocational Rehabilitation Services, which is part of the state's Family and Social Services Administration. Indiana University's Institute on Disability and Community is providing technical assistance.

Organizers say the program's goal is to build independent living skills among participants.

Once the students leave their classroom and begin their daily work, "they are interns and they are learning," said Sam Whisenant of the Gibson-Warrick-Pike Special Education Cooperative. "They are workers, and they are good workers."