Employment Services - Project Search
A New Program at Children’s Hospital
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It’s sad when you consider that there are few more eager, willing and able individuals out there wanting—needing—to be contributing members of the workforce.
“I really, really want to make my own money,” said intern Derrick, 23. “That’s why I came here (Project SEARCH) in the first place.”
Purpose
Children’s Project SEARCH program is funded by the Regional Center of the East Bay and the California State Department of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Oakland Adult and Career Education funds the teacher component. East Bay Innovations (EBI) manages the effort. The program is operated at no cost to Children’s Hospital.
Lori Kotsonas, director of Employment Services at EBI, directs Project SEARCH at Children’s Hospital. “The main purpose of Project SEARCH,” she explained, “is to provide real-world work opportunities for people with disabilities in a larger variety of fields than were previously available.”
In the past, workers with
disabilities
were frequently relegated to menial labor
performed out of view. Project SEARCH
wants to expand the job horizon, and even
the career horizon, of its clients. Lori is
ambitious for them.
“People with developmental disabilities have proven to be very capable,” she said, “especially if presented with a job that is routine and systematic.”
Routine and systematic are the keys to the Project SEARCH pick-up truck. Even if a job is complex, if it can be broken down into routines, and performed systematically, with the right support or assisted technologies, the interns can drive almost any job successfully.
But Lori, ever the advocate, wants more than just jobs for her interns; she wants careers, benefits, and opportunities to move up the ladder.
“It’s nice that you can be a bagger for 15 years,” she said, “and maybe, for some that’s enough. But for others, why shouldn’t they also get promoted? ”
Assisted technologies
Another key to Project SEARCH’s success is a willingness to look with fresh eyes at how jobs are done. Sometimes a simple innovation—or assisted technology—is all it takes to tap a client ’s special abilities.
That’s where job coaches and teachers come in. Three full-time job coaches and two part-time job teachers serve Children’s interns, overseeing their labors, reinforcing their skills, and just as importantly, finding ways to accommodate jobs to an intern’s abilities or disabilities.