SEARCH and you will find: Project SEARCH Pensacola helps youth with disabilities land jobs

Spencer Orem got a lot more out of his time at Pensacola Beach hotels than a room with a view.

Orem is one of five young adults who graduated from the Project SEARCH Pensacola program with not only a job, but a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Project SEARCH Pensacola — a collaboration between Global Connections to Employment, the Escambia County School District, Innisfree Hotels and the state of Florida's Vocational Rehabilitation program — is a local branch of an international program founded in 1996 to prepare 18- to 22-year-olds with disabilities for employment.

Orem, 20, was accepted to the program last April and spent a year working at multiple hotels in the area to improve his skills and professionalism and to show he is a reliable candidate for any job.

"They helped me a lot with my skills and how to advocate for myself," Orem said. "I was scared honestly, because I didn't know if I was gonna get a job or not."

After graduating from Project SEARCH Pensacola, Orem has received a job offer to work in the custodial services at De Luna Health and Rehabilitation Center.

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His parents were worried about him attaining a job in the future but Orem's time at  Project SEARCH Pensacola gave them a sense of relief.

"There's always that fear when your child has any kind of disability — how they're going to survive that next level when they go into adulthood? We're not always going to be there and that's one thing you worry about is, 'Will they be able to carry on and take care of themselves?'" Bobby Dix, Orem's father, said. "And a program like this comes along and it takes a lot of worry away because you see how they teach him, and how they've grown so much while they've been in this program, and just the excitement and now he's ready to go on to the next one. It makes us feel more comfortable."

In April, applicants were selected to enter the program and become unpaid interns. For the first four weeks, they were trained by Project SEARCH Instructional Specialist Bobbi Harrison an hour every day on different methods to succeed on the job and in life. This included skills for dealing with anxiety and anger, being advocates for themselves and blocking out negative outside influences.

"I see them like little caterpillars, and then they are beautiful butterflies by the time we get to today where they're confident, they're advocating for themselves," Harrison said during the graduation ceremony Wednesday at Hilton Pensacola Beach. "I'm confident that when they go out to work, if there's an accommodation that they might need, that they're going to speak up for themselves and say, 'I can do this job better if you give me a list or give me a timer.' Whatever is going to make them be successful on the job because they all have purpose and they all succeed and they're finding their places in the world."

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The program conducts hotel and hospitality training through three Innisfree hotels: Hampton Inn Pensacola Beach, Hilton Pensacola Beach and Holiday Inn Resort Pensacola Beach Gulf Front. The participants do three, 10-week rotations and Harrison works with them for a full year during their employment until their graduation in May working on social skills, soft skills and professionalism to transfer to other entry-level employment in the area.

Terry Branch, general manager of Hilton Pensacola Beach, holds these young adults and the mission to help them close to his heart. When he was a young adult, his mother adopted a child with special needs, and life with his new sister helped realize how much she had to offer society.

Branch loves seeing Project SEARCH members' faces light up as they do something they love, and he said the program helps them grow and become a better version of themselves. At the beginning of the program, many of them were shy and by the end, they were comfortable in their skin, giving out the same love that others give to them.

"When they feel the love and the warmth of an individual, they just give it back tenfold," Branch said. "So I don't see a big difference from year to year in terms of the students, I see a huge difference in the same year from each student as they come to the program, and then come out of it."

Getting those with disabilities a chance at employment is a battle that people like Lisa Bloodworth, director at Global Connection to Employment, work to achieve. Global Connection to Employment is the vocational division of Lakeview Center and is one of the largest employers of people with disabilities in the area.

They match people in different career opportunities from custodial and food services, IT, business and facilities maintenance. They also provide the skills trainers who work with the interns throughout the year, alongside Harrison.

Bloodworth hopes Global Connection to Employment will show employers that even though people with disabilities have differences, they are valuable, dependable and reliable workers.

"That's what Project SEARCH is about, is giving them an opportunity to get in a business, like Innisfree and their hotel environment, where people can actually see what they are capable of doing," Bloodworth said. "And once they see that and they provide that training and they witness it, then employers are more willing to give them an opportunity. So it just gives them that edge and opportunity to show, 'Hey, even though I have a disability, this is what I can do.'"

Typically, Project SEARCH participants are high school students who are on an Individual Education Program  and in their last year of high school eligibility, according to the Escambia County School District. The program can also be adapted to serve out-of-school youth and young adults who are beyond school age.

More information is available at ecsd-fl.schoolloop.com.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Project SEARCH helps Pensacola youth with disabilities find employment