My students are 12+ grade students with Intellectual Disabilities, Autism, and Specific Learning Disabilities. Our school system is considered high poverty. My students have made the decision to take advantage of being able to stay in school until they complete their internships with Project SEARCH.
Project SEARCH is a high school transition program that teaches students with disabilities transferable job skills in on-the-job internship placements with the goal of employment by the end of the year.
Without the opportunity to participate in Project SEARCH, my students would have very few post-secondary employment options. We live in a small rural south Georgia town and do not have public transportation. Through Project SEARCH, my students not only learn employable job skills, but life skills such as preparing their clothes for work each day.
My Project
My Project SEARCH interns are learning employable job skills at Archbold Medical Center. They are required to wear a uniform to work each day. We have been able to secure funding for their uniforms through an outside agency but only enough to purchase 3 pair of pants and 4 shirts for the work week.
Students must wash their uniforms during the week to keep them clean and germ free for our hospital setting.
Students participating in Project SEARCH are not paid for their internships. Most of them have never had the responsibility of washing their clothes. We have weekly conversations about how to prepare their clothes to be washed and stains that may need extra attention. We discuss the importance of having a professional appearance with clean clothes. It would be a blessing to be able to provide laundry detergent, dryer sheets, stain remover and wrinkle remover to my students as they learn to be independent adults. Learning to take care of their own laundry is certainly a skill they will need forever!
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