Young adults with disabilities now have access to a new job training site in Northwest Florida thanks to expansion of Project SEARCH in Santa Rosa County.
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The newest Project SEARCH site is located on the campus of Santa Rosa Medical Center, where a ribbon-cutting ceremony was held Friday.
“Our interns are going to have an opportunity to rotate in a number of different departments,” said CEO Justin Serrano. “We’ve identified materials management, environmental services as well as some other support functions.”
For each intern, there’s an opportunity for three, ten-week rotations.
“And the hope really is that each and every one of you get a chance to learn what, maybe, you’re passionate about,” Serrano said, directing some of his remarks to the interns themselves. “If you can find that, we’d love to then take that as an opportunity to transition you into a full-time employment opportunity.”
Serrano already boasts the hiring of three local graduates of Project SEARCH, which is a national program helping young adults with disabilities, age 18-22, transition to employment over the course of a school year.
This latest site is a collaboration between Santa Rosa Medical Center, Global Connections to Employment (GCE), and Santa Rosa County Schools.
Santa Rosa County Superintendent Dr. Karen Barber says talks with Serrano began about 18 months ago, with the district focused on expanding beyond the Project SEARCH site at Gulf Breeze Hospital.
“We need another one for internship opportunities here, employment opportunities for our students who live in the central and north end of our county,” said Barber. “And, within a year and a half, with the help of Global Connections to Employment, it has happened.”
As one of the nation’s largest employers of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, GCE has assisted many such young adults in the region since 2007, with other Project SEARCH sites at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola and Innisfree Hotel locations in Pensacola Beach and Fort Walton Beach.
Each location has a certified instructor and employment transition specialist on-site to work with both interns and business leaders, providing individualized instruction, support, and accommodations.
“It’s a school-to-work transition program for young adults and we help to teach them job skills,” said GCE’s Heidi Blinsinger, program coordinator for Project SEARCH. “We teach them communication skills, how to be a dependable worker and they get to practice those skills at a job site like Santa Rosa Medical Hospital.”
Blinsinger and Katie Wilkerson, a Santa Rosa County teacher, will be hands-on with the five students who were selected for the new internships from a group of 25 applicants and have helped each of the young men get to this point in the process.
“They’ve had their interviews for their internships, so they’re waiting for their approval and their assignment for their first rotation,” Wilkerson said. “They’ve practiced interview skills. They’ve practice recognizing hazards, identifying various signs that they’re (going to) see throughout the hospital site and what that might mean in accordance to their job and their task at hand.”
Intern Douglas Haden emphasized some of the things they’ve been doing to get ready.
“We did job interviews this Monday,” said Haden. “Sitting up straight, being respectful, and eye contact is a big thing.”
Like Haden, intern Landon Kincaid said he was excited to be selected for the program, “I was a little nervous for the interviews, but I got good (reviews) and I got chosen.”
The big goal for the Project SEARCH participants is to land a good job.
“Something about first-responders,” Kincaid said of his dream job. “Because I appreciate what they do for us.”
Kincaid, Haden and the other young adults selected for internships at Santa Rosa Medical Center soon will learn their rotations and will officially start Monday, September 30.
