Project Opportunity is giving young adults with disabilities valuable job skills and brighter futures.

by Kara Furlong
photo by Steve Green

Cory Sparks is a typical 20-year-old. He enjoys logging on to MySpace, text-messaging his friends, and rocking out to Poison – his favorite band. And like many young people this time of year, he is eagerly embarking on a new phase of life.

Since last July, Sparks has participated in Project Opportunity, a job-training and placement program for young adults with developmental disabilities run by the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. Over a nine-month period, Sparks learned to navigate Vanderbilt’s labyrinthine medical center, brushed up his social and interviewing skills, and received hands-on training in a variety of tasks.

Armed with this preparation, he sought and won an internship with Vanderbilt Plant Operations’ grounds crew in early April. The internship has gone extremely well, putting him in line for one of the department’s next available positions.

Sparks’ success not only is a milestone in his life, but also marks a new phase for Project Opportunity. Begun in 2005, the program has graduated 15 students to date, nine of whom have gone on to full- or part-time positions at the Children’s Hospital or Vanderbilt Medical Center. Sparks is the first placement on the university side of campus, a development that thrills program coordinator Sara Ezell.

“Up to this point, all of our students have trained for medical-related jobs, including Cory,” she said. “But he lobbied hard to be placed on the grounds crew – that’s what he’s interested in. Cory’s internship is a huge win: for him, because he’s got the job he wants; and for us, because we now have a relationship with a department on the university side.”

Project Opportunity is open to all area students with developmental disabilities ages 18-22 and in their final year of high school. From July through the following May, a class of around eight participants meets at the Children’s Hospital for four to five hours a day, five days a week and receives extensive instruction in how to behave professionally, how to compete for available jobs, and the skills needed to thrive in those positions once they have them.

They start with the basics. “We recruit motivated students who we think will be good fits with the program, then we spend the year giving them various experiences and doing a lot of employability training: how to behave appropriately on the elevators, how to interact with the people they meet, how to look them in the eye and introduce themselves,” Ezell said. This training includes role-playing exercises within the classroom to expose the students to a variety of situations and personalities they might encounter while out and about on campus.

“We establish a very high level of expectation in our students, so they are used to being put through pretty stiff rigors of doing their job right and communicating effectively,” Ezell said. “Pretty much anything somebody else would throw at them they are going to think is novice compared to what we put them through.”

Since the Children’s Hospital’s size and complexity can be intimidating to any newcomer, the Project Opportunity participants are guided through way-finding exercises to familiarize them with the setting.

Then the students are taught specific skill sets related to the various tasks, or rotations, they will train in throughout the program. These rotations include everything from sorting and delivering mail to clinics in the Doctors’ Office Tower, to transporting and sterilizing surgical equipment, to cleaning tables and replenishing condiments at the food court.

Each task is broken down to its fundamental steps and presented clearly and directly to the students, so that they can understand the job and perform it efficiently.

“Entry-level, routine tasks are perfect for our students because these tasks are consistent. They are things we can teach, and they’re the same every day,” Ezell said. “These are jobs that typically have a high turnover rate, but if hired, our students would stay in them forever. That sense of security is really comforting to them.”

Based on which rotation a student excels in or prefers, the Project Opportunity staff searches the Vanderbilt jobline and puts out feelers to participating departments to set up interviews for positions that fit the student’s qualifications. If these work out, the result is permanent, paid employment for the student.

Project Opportunity is unique in that token jobs are not created for the participants, nor is the ultimate goal to lump them together for a group task. Individuals compete for existing jobs and must undergo the same application and interview process as any other candidate.

Programs providing this sort of real-world experience for the developmentally disabled community are few and far-between, according to Ezell.

“Ages 18-22 are a crucial time for this population, because at 22 their legal right to special education services ends. If they don’t have job skills, they can become lost,” she said.

Ezell believes Cory Sparks easily could have fallen through the cracks.

“Cory is quiet, and it would be easy to overlook him,” she said. “But once you get to know him you realize what a smart, savvy guy he is.” Project Opportunity provides the time and attention students like Sparks need to shine.

And his parents – like those of most who complete the program and earn employment – are elated, according to Ezell. “As this population ages, so do their caregivers, and they naturally worry about what will happen when they are gone. They want their children to be successful and have something to which they can contribute.”

Parents also appreciate the tangible fruits of their children’s labor. “At Vanderbilt, these students can have a career,” Ezell said. “They can get good insurance, which is crucially important for this population. They’ll receive benefits, a retirement plan. All of these things are revolutionary for this type of kid.”

Such motivators, however, are often lost on the Project Opportunity participants, many of whom have little experience dealing with money or appreciation for a paycheck, Ezell said. Instead, the staff tries to appeal to the sense of pride the students can take in their jobs, which are typically more meaningful than the work they might get elsewhere.

For example, one of the program’s training rotations is working with the Children’s Hospital’s respiratory therapy department. The job includes collecting empty oxygen tanks around the hospital and replacing them with full ones.

“When we train them, we talk about the importance of this job. We emphasize that there are babies who are patients at the hospital who need oxygen. When a nurse reaches for a tank, she must get a full one. The students grasp this, and it makes their work more meaningful and improves their productivity,” Ezell said.

Project Opportunity’s successes would not be possible without its employment partners across campus. Often these relationships have flourished because a particular employee within a department has taken a special interest in working with the students.

Ezell credits the cooperation of Assistant Vice Chancellor for Plant Operations Mark Petty and Director of General Services Lisbeth Wyatt with making Sparks’ internship on the grounds crew happen, and commends lead landscape gardener John Harrison for taking him under his wing.

The Project Opportunity staff worked closely with Plant Operations, as it does with all departments that hire its students, to make Sparks’ transition to the grounds crew seamless. The program also provides follow-up services and additional training whenever jobs require it.

“If Plant Ops were to change, say, the type of lawnmower it uses, we might step in and help train Cory because he might need to be trained a little differently than the other guys,” Ezell said. “We’re always in the background, checking in, making sure things are OK. Once a student begins with Project Opportunity, they’re always a part of the program.”

For now, it’s “onward and upward” for Sparks, who became interested in grounds maintenance through his training at the Tennessee Rehabilitation Center before coming to Vanderbilt. He’s pleased that his persistence paid off in getting him the internship. “It took a while, but I got in. I kept on bugging them,” he said, a sly smile crossing his face, of his insistence that the grounds crew was where he wanted to be.

Sparks, who’s currently assigned to the crew that maintains the green spaces around Greek Row and West End Avenue, said his duties include picking up trash and mowing grass, and that his fellow workers have been helpful.

“They teach me what I need to be learning,” he said.

“He’s doing really well,” said Danny McKissack, Plant Operations’ acting grounds foreman. “He’s fallen in with the crew, and I feel real confident about having him on board. He likes what he’s doing, and that’s really important. When you do grounds work, you have to have a passion for it, and Cory does.”

“Bigger and better” is the motto for the Project Opportunity staff, tireless champions of the students with whom they work. Their goals for the future include giving participants even richer training experiences and placing them in jobs that reach more parts of campus.

What’s the moment like when, after almost a year of hard work, a student gets hired?

“It’s pretty stinkin’ fun,” Ezell admits. “I think we get more excited than the kids do.”


Project Opportunity is funded in part by the Tennessee Department of Vocational Rehabilitative Services, the Council on Development Disabilities and the Tennessee Department of Special Education. For more information about the program, visit www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/projectopportunity.

Posted 05/01/08