Project SEARCH recently launched in Pennsylvania to provide disabled students with hands-on job-skills training at Saint Vincent Hospital in Erie.
Project SEARCH was developed in Cincinnati in 1996. It is a national model providing training to secondary-school graduating students with disabilities through strategically designed internships.
Students received complete workplace immersion for one year as well as career exploration and classroom instruction. Each employer hosts up to 12 interns and is staffed by one to three skills trainers and an education teacher.
In Pennsylvania, the program will be a partnership between Saint Vincent Hospital, the Erie County Office of Mental Health/Intellectual Disabilities, the Barber National Institute, the Erie School District, and the state Department of Labor and Industry’s Office (L&I) of Vocational Rehabilitation.
Saint Vincent will serve students from the Erie School District.
“The preparation and real-life work experience students will receive at Saint Vincent’s Hospital though the Project SEARCH program sets them on a path of success and productivity in their adult lives,” L&I Secretary Jerry Oleksiak said. “When people with a disability hold jobs and earn competitive wages, they can achieve greater independence and inclusion in the community, and by creating a climate hospitable to workers with a disability, the commonwealth can tap an undervalued labor pool.”