An Employee and Employer Tell How Employment Opportunities Create Independence and Pride in the MAD Fall 2012
The following are perspectives from the 2012 Fall Making a Difference magazine of an employee and employer sharing how employment opportunities create independence and pride.
The Way It Should Be
By Jordon Godoy
My name is Jordon Godoy. I was born in El Paso, TX but now live in Dalton, GA. After completing my studies at Northwest Whitfield High School, I joined the Project SEARCH program at the Hamilton Medical Center. I was an intern from 2010 to 2011, working in departments throughout the hospital with the help of a teacher and job coach. Project SEARCH helps students with disabilities go from school to adult life with training and experience to get us ready to live on our own.
I had a teacher from the school system who taught me about budgeting, health and social skills. My job coach worked for an adult support agency, Cross Plains Community Partner (CPCP), and helped me learn job skills, how to build a resume and gave me practice at interviewing. CPCP, the Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency (GVRA), the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities and Hamilton Medical Center were all partners of this program that gave me the experience I needed.
The program was very helpful and taught me a lot of job skills that I had never done before. I got to work in inventory management, maintenance and food services. Even though I never had an internship with the laundry services department, the supervisor of that department noticed my hard work and good attitude while working in the other areas and informed me she had a job opening.
I began working in the laundry services department a few days a week through a staffing agency. But as I learned the job duties and got to know my coworkers, I was given more hours and more responsibilities. I just celebrated one year since being hired. I am now working four to five days a week, which sometimes includes the Sunday shift, a shift I work alone and where I am responsible for everything.
Project SEARCH is great for helping young people get experience with job skills. We learn how to multi-task and manage money. Budgeting has been helpful for me. I earned my driver's license about a year ago and I am now driving to work. I am also on a waiting list to move into my own apartment and be completely independent. Having my job and doing it well is why I'm able to do all of these things.
Programs like Project SEARCH also help the whole community. It gives the community workers with good experience and people who are able to take care of themselves. As a Hispanic American, I like that our community has a lot of different people and all of them have chances to work. That's the way it should be.
About Jordon Godoy
Jordon Godoy, a graduate of Whitfield County High School and former Project SEARCH intern, currently works in the laundry services department of Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, GA. He works on rotating assignments, between a variety of jobs; loading and unloading dryers, hand-folding bed linens, operating a large press machine that dries and folds bed sheets and delivering linen supplies to the patient floors.
Creating an Inclusive Community with Project SEARCH – Shaw
By Lisa Rodriguez Buice
Shaw Industries has always lived by its strong reputation of giving back to the community. So when one of my colleagues and board members of Cross Plains Community Partner (CPCP) in Dalton, GA approached me about Project SEARCH, I knew this would be a fantastic opportunity. Our take on Project SEARCH is a unique one – focused on providing on-the-job skills training to young adults with developmental disabilities who have already graduated from high school.
Project SEARCH – Shaw has been a wonderful experience to date and is the result of the synergy and collaboration between the CPCP staff, Dottie Adams from the Georgia Council on Developmental Disabilities (GCDD), Project SEARCH and many Shaw Industries associates. In preparing for the interns, we leaned on Suzie Rutkowski, co-director of Project SEARCH, for guidance and support. We held weekly meetings for approximately three months prior to the program start date in order to brainstorm and discuss pressing issues. The result – a thoughtfully crafted program which addresses the needs of the interns, CPCP, Project SEARCH and Shaw.
Aside from the expertise and professionalism from all of the people involved in the different organizations, I have to attribute the success of Project SEARCH – Shaw to one factor – a great stream of communication. Expectations were established across the board early, roles were defined, action items were assigned and progress reports were consistently given. All hands were on deck! We also saw tremendous value in communicating with our internal stakeholders, all of our Shaw associates, especially those who would be interacting with the Project SEARCH – Shaw interns. Doing so gave our associates an opportunity to learn about the program, ask questions and discuss any concerns or apprehensions they had about working with someone with a disability. It was a very meaningful experience for them, and it gave us a platform to talk about some of the issues many people with disabilities face in employment. Ultimately, as critical players to the success of Project SEARCH – Shaw, our associates appreciated that we took the time to help them understand their role and its impact on the development of our Project SEARCH interns.
According to the United States Department of Labor, the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is 13.9% versus 8% for people without disabilities. This statistic alone tells you that barriers to employment exist in our great nation for people with disabilities. Companies and organizations across the country are making great strides to be more inclusive by providing fair paying jobs to this very able workforce. Shaw Industries wanted to do something more. We firmly believe that "a strong workforce is an inclusive workforce," and we're doing something about it by providing very able individuals a place to acquire marketable, transferable skills through Project SEARCH. It's been an investment of time and resources, but every step along the way has been well worth allowing our Project SEARCH interns the opportunity to grow personally and professionally, when they otherwise may have stumbled across an invisible barrier.
About Lisa Rodriguez Buice
Lisa Rodriguez Buice is the corporate diversity manager for Shaw Industries, the world's largest floor covering manufacturing company and a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. She is responsible for providing direction for all of Shaw's corporate diversity initiatives and programs and focuses on developing strategies that support Shaw as an inclusive, engaged workplace, with a heavy focus on internal and external communications, leadership and business development, diversity recruiting, work/life balance, education and training, mentorship and scholarship programs.
