Area Board 10 Launches Project Search in Los Angeles

Project Search is an exciting, innovative employment program that originated at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in 1997 and is currently being replicated in 40 states and several countries. Project Search (PS) has both a youth transition program and adult employment program. Both lead to meaningful, well-paying integrated jobs in hospitals and more recently, expanded to banking and government services.

California got its first Project Search sites in 2008: at Oakland Children's Hospital and Kaiser Permanente in Vallejo. Despite its reputation as a lively and (relatively) economically robust region, southern California has not offered many employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. For this reason, Area Board 10 decided to focus much of its limited resources at tackling this problem.

We did research on Project Search and discovered it's a winner! It has a phenomenally successful track record of getting people into not simply jobs, but careers, with salaries that one can live on. We decided to use some of the mini-grant funds to bring Project Search to Los Angeles. So far, we've met with two local supported employment providers who in turn have signed licensing agreements that permit them to use the Project Search name, materials and expertise. We are beginning to work with the two hospitals that we hope will house Project Search.

We hope to be able to report back on a successful launch sometime in 2009.