Employment skills training helps your young adult succeed
Even under the best circumstances, landing a job is stressful. For teens, it’s harder. And when you add special abilities to the mix, it might seem like the trifecta of complex endeavors.
But the challenge is not insurmountable. In fact, for a lot of teens and young adults with disabilities, a job can offer life-altering benefits. Hope Haven offers customized employment and transition services that can help your young adult focus on the skills they’ll need.
What it takes
For anyone who works, getting and keeping a job requires a combination of skills. These include:
Drive: Desire to work successfully, learn and integrate new skills and information.
Endurance: Ability and desire to work full shifts consistently, demonstrating reliability, persistence in response to initial setbacks.
Soft skills: Ability to interact with people, adhere to rules and policies consistently, demonstrate appropriate dressing and grooming habits and other behaviors needed in any job setting.
Self-advocacy: Speaking up for yourself, interacting with supervisors, making reasonable requests—all in a manner that’s productive, respectful and conducive to the workplace.
Productivity: Getting work done at the speed and quality level required for the job.
What your young adult gets
Employment confers a whole range of benefits on anyone who works. Those benefits are multiplied for special-needs young adults. Among them: A sense of independence, self-sufficiency, pride in accomplishment, ongoing positive reinforcement and socialization. Not to mention the money earned. It’s a triple-win for the family, the employee and the company that hires them.
Employment can also be challenging. It places the employee in a complex and unfamiliar environment—socially and physically. It challenges the employee to learn and master new skills and coping strategies.
But in the end, for many special-needs adolescents and young adults, overcoming those challenges can increase self-awareness, confidence and joy.
Programs available at Hope Haven
We offer fully customized programs to help special-needs clients find appropriate employment and perform at the highest possible standards—as well as parent training classes to help family members provide support. These programs include:
Project SEARCH: Developed and implemented jointly through business partnerships, this program connects candidates with internships that can lead to paid ongoing employment. Interview and application required; multiple scholarship resources are available.
Employment Services: Personalized job coaching and skill development from certified employment professionals. Participants focus on learning skills that can help advance their careers.
Paid on-the-job training: Helps participants age 16 and older develop and strengthen skills needed for career success.
For more information about our employment skills training programs, or to arrange a tour of Hope Haven, contact us at 904-346-5100.