myVU - Resources for Faculty and Staff

Project Opportunity helps young adults with developmental disabilities

Posted 4/9/2008

Project Opportunity is a job training program for young adults with developmental disabilities. Students from 18-22 years old in their last year of high school are given the opportunity to learn job skills. The goal of Project Opportunity is to fill a business need with qualified individuals with developmental disabilities. 

Once admitted into the program, student interns experience various worksites called “rotations,” which are designed specifically to teach transferable skills that will be vital in competing for open positions at Vanderbilt.  Examples of rotations include cleaning and sorting surgical instruments, transporting medical equipment, and processing and delivering mail. 

Project Opportunity works collaboratively with departments to design these rotations and provides the training and support for the interns to help them be successful.  In addition to providing a place for interns to learn transferable skills, rotations allow departments to have experience working with individuals with disabilities, which often leads to job opportunities for our graduates.

After completing the job training portion of the program, Project Opportunity identifies employment opportunities for interns who are determined to be qualified applicants for open positions at Vanderbilt.  Thus, positions are not created, but qualified graduates are placed into existing openings and must compete with other applicants.  Project Opportunity then provides ongoing support to graduates who are placed into jobs, along with the supervisors and co-workers in the hiring departments. 

During the first three years of Project Opportunity, 15 individuals with developmental disabilities have completed the job-training portion of the program and nine have been hired into full or part-time, regular positions at Vanderbilt University.  Of the four current interns, two have been placed into jobs and the other two are seeking positions as of this writing. 

The program is based in the Monroe Carrell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt, and is funded through a collaboration among the State Department of Vocational Rehabilitative Services, Council on Development Disabilities and the State Department of Special Education.   


For more information, contact Project Opportunity at (615) 343-7773
www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/projectopportunity

---