Young adults with disabilities often face significant barriers to gaining meaningful employment. By combining classroom instruction, career exploration, and hands-on training, interns gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed to transition into the workforce. With a passion for improving outcomes, West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine Project SEARCH continuously seeks to strengthen their program by embracing new and innovative technologies, like Silas by CentralReach.
Elevating WVU Medicine's Project SEARCH Vocational Training Model with Interactive Learning and Digital Support
Preparing interns for a job they can enjoy and take pride in requires a multifaceted approach. To do this, Project SEARCH offers a comprehensive training experience that combines classroom instruction with hands-on training.
WVU Medicine Project SEARCH recently integrated Silas by CentralReach and avail technologies into their existing program. Silas offers interactive, self-paced lessons that build vocational knowledge and skills. Silas also provides a vocational assessment to help interns identify their interests and abilities, which is an important step to guide individuals toward a career they will both enjoy and excel in. avail equips interns with customizable, digital task-analyzed prompting to promote greater independence. Together, these tools enrich the intern’s experiences and expand instructors’ capacity while fostering a more well-rounded and individualized vocational training program.
Unlocking More Learning Hours with Individualized,Self-Paced Lessons
Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor, credited this incredible achievement to the use of Silas. By assigning targeted lessons through Silas, interns were able to receive individualized, self-paced support tailored to their needs. When each intern is building upon different skills and at various paces, this allows some interns to independently complete Silas lessons, while others receive 1:1 guidance. As Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor shared, “If you have someone that’s struggling to learn something, you can assign that in Silas, and it gives them that extra curriculum to work with.
“We were able to offer an additional week of learning to our 10-week internship program through the use of Silas, covering topics beyond our program.”
– Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor
Every hour counts when it comes to preparing young adults for the workforce. By maximizing available time and resources, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor was able to deepen interns’ learning and help them develop critical life skills. “You know, if you think about the concept of 10,000 hours to become a master of a skill–how do you get our kids that 10,000 hours quicker? Silas is able to help us do that,” Nick shared. Leveraging this technology augments and accelerates what the interns are doing, allowing for hours of additional learning.
Empowering Interns to Be the Star of Their Own Movie with Silas
This student-created film showcases real-world job skills using Silas' movie maker!
The Silas movie maker empowers interns to take an active role in their learning by designing and customizing their own movies. The videos they create are based on the skills they are learning within their program, deepening their understanding while fostering creativity and ownership of the learning process.
“Our interns are 17, 18, up to mid 20’s. And they really enjoy using this (Silas movie maker). They were related to Fortnite and Minecraft and other video games they played growing up. They’re able to create that little scenario in about a minute or so and really practice those skills that we’re teaching them in the classroom.”
– Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor
Building Confidence and Expanding Horizons Through Interactive Learning: One Intern’s Success Story
Nick shared how one intern’s journey highlights the incredible impact WVU Medicine Project SEARCH’s program can have on young adults with disabilities. When she began the program, she had a narrow view of the world, which made it difficult for her to envision a career path that would work for her.
Over the course of just a few months, this intern has made incredible progress. She eagerly completes lessons on Silas–Even going so far as to request to be assigned more work! Her genuine motivation and excitement to learn shines through each day. Thanks to the program, her openness to exploring different types of jobs has expanded and her once-rigid thinking has begun to shift.
“She’s grown tremendously,” shared Nick Lafferty. “From a personal perspective, she’s more open, more talkative, and her social skills have grown. A lot of that I attribute to the things she’s learned in Silas and the fact that she’s able to work in this program.”
– Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor
This intern’s journey underscores the power of combining innovative tools with classroom learning and hands-on experiences. By fostering curiosity, building confidence, and expanding skillsets with Silas, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Hospitals is making a true difference in the life of this intern and many others.
Building Skills, Shaping Futures
West Virginia University (WVU) Medicine Project SEARCH is demonstrating how a holistic blend of cutting-edge tools, hands-on experiences, and individualized instruction can prepare young adults for meaningful careers. By incorporating Silas by CentralReach and avail, the program continues to produce new and expanded opportunities to help their interns gain essential skills and expand their horizons—shaping the future through vocational skill building.
Hear from Nick Lafferty, WVU Medicine Project SEARCH Instructor
on how he successfully integrated interactive pre-employment curriculum and digital role-play into his vocational program—plus, get a quick tour of Silas!
Posted in Education, Special Education
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