Project SEARCH wins second national award

Project SEARCH has been awarded its second national award with an "Employment Leader of the Year" for having an 80 percent job placement, the highest percentage of job placements in the program for the year. Project SEARCH is a program that started in 1996 at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and has expanded to 160 locations worldwide, including locations in Australia, England, Scotland and Canada. Xavier was the first university to have a Project SEARCH program established and has been helping interns make the transition from high school to the work force. Project SEARCH is aimed towards students who are in their final year of high school between the ages of 18 and 22 with significant disabilities. Xavier accepts 12 interns each year who work for free for a school year developing and enhancing work skills and focusing on communication and problem solving skills.

The program on Xavier's campus has seen a wide range of interns with disabilities, including reading and writing disabilities, autism and cognitive disabilities. According to Trisha Heim, an educational coordinator for Project SEARCH, interns are ideally given three different job opportunities in 12 week increments throughout the year in order to cater to the interns' strengths. Job opportunities on Xavier's campus available for the interns include working as a groundskeeper for Physical Plant; cooking, serving, working the cash register and dishwashing for Andy's Mediterranean Grill; working as a Montessori Lab School aide and working at the Mail Center sorting and delivering mail. Interns arrive on campus around 8 a.m. after riding the bus. From 8 to 8:45 a.m., interns attend a class that follows an approved Great Oaks, a vocational school specializing in career development for high school students and adults, curriculum where they learn daily living/employability skills including check writing, nutrition and resume writing. After class, the interns go to their respective job sites and work until 2 p.m. with a 45 minute lunch break. Interns are placed into jobs that the instructor feels would most benefit them and match their strengths when possible. After the interns finish their work day, they meet in the Project SEARCH office to reflect on the day and to write in their journals. The interns also meet with a job coach who works with them until they are able to perform their tasks independently. The ultimate goal of the program is job placement, according to Heim, either at Xavier or outside of Xavier. Recently, Xavier's dining company, Chartwell hired a student who had worked with them through the Project SEARCH program. At the end of the school year, Project SEARCH holds a graduation ceremony for the interns and an intern from each location, namely Xavier University, Cincinnati Children's, Fifth Third Bank and Clinton Memorial Hospital gives a speech. The graduation ceremony also features a guest speaker. According to Heim, Project SEARCH aims to give these students the opportunity to become more independent and to give them the skills needed to get a paying job in a competitive work environment.