“I didn’t think I’d be able to get a job out in society and if it wasn’t for CTC introducing me to Project Search, I probably wouldn’t have gotten a job,” said Kuhn, who has already started his career with the Springfield Regional Medical Center’s dietary program.
Kuhn and the other students did three rotations of internships, each in a different area of the hospital’s operations, including dietary, linen management, environmental cleaning and hospital equipment management. Along with learning these specific job skills, SEARCH teaches students everyday life skills such as etiquette and workplace relationship building, said Jeana Baucant, director of the program.
Now that Kuhn is employed working with food, a passion he has always had, he has dreams to some day open his own restaurant.
“My biggest goal is to raise enough money to start my own business,” he said.
Project SEARCH is a national program with the goal of helping high school students with developmental disabilities successfully transition into the work force. SEARCH participants spend the final year of their high school careers immersed in the workplace in order to gain work experience so they can find successful jobs after their graduation.
Clark County’s program is one of 32 SEARCH programs throughout Ohio. There are more than 300 Project SEARCH programs running nationally. The organization was founded in 1995 at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Because of the skills they learned and the way they were excelling in their desired job fields, every student graduating this year was offered a job before their internships ended and before they even graduated from high school. The Clark County program is one of the few in the nation with this 100 percent success rate, and the relationship between Project SEARCH participants and employers such as Springfield Regional Medical Center is what makes the internships last into a career, Baucant said.
The happy atmosphere created by SEARCH interns is what Marianne Potina, SRMC vice president of mission integration, said she enjoys most about the working relationship.
“We get to see them smile every day. They love their jobs, and when you love your job like they do, that’s something everyone can admire and enjoy,” Potina said. “That’s just one of the many valuable rewards we see, including how each of their talents helps us create a diverse workforce.”
The students worked with job coaches and had mentors throughout their internships. In the program, if a student graduates without a job offer, they are guided through the job search by coaches who will hopefully help them find employment within a year of their graduation, Baucant said.
Project SEARCH is funded through the CTC, but is supported through the collaboration of SRMC, United Rehabilitation Services, Bridges to Transition, Developmental Disabilities of Clark County, Opportunities for Ohioans with Disabilities, the students’ families and the city and county school districts.
The next Project SEARCH class, which will have nine students, will begin in the fall, and organizers said they hope to have continued success with the program.
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