Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Hurst-Euless-Bedford recently joined with the HEB Independent School District, Texas Workforce Solutions and WorkReady Texas to offer on-the-job training for students with disabilities.
The goal is to prepare the students, who are 16 to 22 years old, for employment.
““We want to make sure they’re competitive in the job market,” said Shannon Wright, a job coach from WorkReady. “It’s hard enough for students in general to gain work experience. But when you have students with disabilities, often that creates an even bigger barrier. We’re trying to make sure that once they’ve graduated, we’ve well-equipped them.”
The first two groups of students have worked in Food and Nutrition Services, cleaning the dining area, washing dishes, stocking the food, and helping prepare and deliver trays for patients. They are paid for their work by the state – often the first time they’ve earned a paycheck.
Wright drives the students to and from the hospital, and stays during their shifts. She helps the students obtain their food handlers permit, learn the uniform requirements, go through hospital orientation and complete the daily COVID-19 screenings.
Personal attention
Each student is also paired with an employee mentor who trains and supervises them.
Kristin Guhr, nutrition manager, has worked with students who help prepare for the patients’ meal service and clean up afterward.
“It’s been fantastic,” Guhr said. “Especially when we’re short-staffed, they’re able to step in and help us out to get the patients their meals on time. We love working with them. They always have a positive attitude and they’re willing to help out with any tasks we need.”
She said the students aren’t the only ones to benefit from the program.
“They’re very inspiring,” Guhr said. “They’re in a new environment with new people and new tasks – maybe something they’ve never been in before – but they step up and they have no problem taking on a new role or new challenge. They have a great work ethic.”
One student, Zoe Cardona-Ruiz, at right, especially enjoyed helping to deliver meals to patients.
Everyone benefits
The program was championed by Fraser Hay, hospital president.
“I’ve been fortunate to collaborate with school districts at two previous hospitals to start up similar programs,” Hay said. “We reached out to the district and mentioned our interest in helping them provide meaningful learning, job-based opportunities for these students. They responded enthusiastically and we were quickly able to stand this up with the hopes of continually expanding the number of students we’re hosting and the number of departments and disciplines they’re exposed to.”
The benefits to the students and the hospital are clear, he added.
“We get to help these students experience different roles so they can see where they excel, while we get the benefit of their joyful spirit and assistance completing necessary work, all while seeing who could be a great fit to potentially permanently join our team,” Hay said. “We also see that when we teach others, we are at our best and it helps reignite the spark of why we all got into healthcare to begin with: to help others.”
“Quincy has done a really good job with all the students he’s worked with, explaining how inventory affects so many other areas of the hospital,” Wright said. “He also does such a great job building relationships with them.”
Wright said the trust he built with one student led to a change that brought her to tears.
“The students all have different levels of communication, and one student in particular was used to shutting down when he got overwhelmed,” she said. “He would fake being sick, which is common. Oftentimes, it takes quite a while to build their trust and let them know it’s a safe place where they can be honest about what they’re feeling.”
Wright persuaded him to tell Merritt the truth.
“I was so proud of him,” she said. “Quincy said, ‘We’re going to address the issue, and we’re going to change the way we talk so that you’re comfortable here.’”
Within 10 minutes, Wright said, the student realized he could work through hard things and this was a safe place to do it.
“That was a huge breakthrough for him,” Wright said. “As a coach, seeing it happen just as if it was a natural part of the culture was mind-blowing. I still get goosebumps.”
By Robin P. Loveman • Posted August 3, 2021
