Bon Secours is recognizing 19 students across the Richmond area with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities for their completion of Project SEARCH, a national school-to-work program. Project SEARCH provides hands-on training to students with disabilities through internships at health care facilities and other businesses, with a goal of employment upon completion. Seven Chesterfield County students, six Henrico County students and six Hanover County students will receive certificates for completion of nine-month internships at celebration events held at each of their internship sites.
Bon Secours hosts three Project SEARCH sites in the Richmond area at Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center, Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital and Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center, and operates in partnership with local public school systems, VCU Rehabilitation Research and Training Center and the Virginia Department for Aging and Rehabilitative Services. These partners provide funding and instructional support, as well as job coaching and supported employment services to students in the program.
Through Project SEARCH, students are assigned to a Bon Secours hospital in their locality where each student then rotates through three hospital departments. Teachers, teaching assistants and job coaches provide them with direct instruction during the rotations, collaborating with hospital department supervisors. Working with hospital supervisors and staff, the students receive hands-on skills training, including stocking supplies, filing, copying, assembling paperwork packets, making deliveries, cleaning, sanitizing equipment, turning over patient rooms and putting together supplies for the nursing units. Each student sets a goal of gaining employment by the end of the school year.
Bon Secours’ partnership with Project SEARCH began in 2009 at St. Mary’s Hospital as part of a VCU research study designed to gather research on examining how to best help youth with autism gain and maintain employment upon graduation. After being proven as highly successful, the program has continued following the completion of the research in 2017.
As of mid-May, seven of the 19 students have been gainfully employed. Four will continue in roles within Bon Secours and three are pursuing roles outside of the health system. Celebration events are being held in May and June at Bon Secours’ various Project SEARCH sites, including Bon Secours St. Francis Medical Center in Midlothian on May 19, Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond on June 2, and Bon Secours Memorial Regional Medical Center in Mechanicsville on June 9.
With 19 students receiving diplomas for the completion of Project SEARCH internships at three Bon Secours sites in Richmond, the health system has awarded a total of nearly 250 diplomas to students with disabilities in the Commonwealth of Virginia since 2009.