Superior Schools' Project SEARCH Teams With Essentia Health

Young students with disabilities will have new opportunities to seek work experience in the real world. A new partnership has been formed linking the Superior School District - and their Project SEARCH - with Essentia Health-St. Mary's Hospital in Superior.

The program got its local start two years ago in 2022. Project SEARCH is described as "an immersive school-to-work program for young adults with disabilities". According to details in the Superior Telegram [paywall], Project SEARCH is a world-wide program that helps "young adults with barriers to employment" find jobs and ways to improve their job-related skill sets. It starts with "research-based instruction on employment skills", offers hands on training and exercises, and helps find open positions in the community.

With the new partnership, the school district will be able to offer internships that rotate through three different sites at the hospital. The internship sites will allow the students to "put their newly learned skills to practice", with the ultimate goal of graduation from the program, and eventually finding employment.

Essentia Health-St. Mary's Hospital will join the other internship sites already active in Superior. Those sites include "the school district and other local businesses, including Ravin Crossbows, Screen Graphics, and Kwik Trip".

The acronym SEARCH stands for "Students Exploring Alternative Resources at Children's Hospital". The name coincides with the original program that was run at Cincinnati's Children's Hospital Medical Center more than 25 years ago. Since then the program has outgrown the original community it was started in - to areas all around the world. But, the name has "stuck". The current goal of the program is to "build....skills and [offer] the goal of meaningful competitive employment".