In 2022, Children’s Minnesota is celebrating the 10th anniversary of our partnership with Project SEARCH. As one of the first two Project SEARCH programs in Minnesota, Children’s Minnesota is making history. Read on to learn about Project SEARCH and its impact.
What is Project SEARCH?
Project SEARCH is a program that helps prepare individuals with special needs for employment. Each year, Children’s Minnesota hosts 8-10 interns through this program.
The interns spend 10 weeks rotating through different jobs throughout the hospital, and they receive support with accommodations, adaptations and one-on-one job coaching throughout their experience. Interns have the opportunity to build skills in a variety of roles, including food preparation, housekeeping, bedside cart sanitizing and stocking, and data entry.
For the last four years, Children’s Minnesota has won the Employment Outcomes award from the national Project SEARCH program for achieving high rates of competitive employment for interns after completion of the program. In fact, 80% of the interns who go through the Project SEARCH program at Children’s Minnesota have secured competitive employment after graduating from the program.
The next class of Project SEARCH interns will join Children’s Minnesota in September 2022.