Information for Potential Community Partners

Vocational Exploration Activities

One of our goals at Project HOPE is to explore and learn more about different jobs. If you would like to partner with us to offer our students a one-time exploration opportunity, that could look a few different ways:

• Student(s) "interview" the manager/owner about different types of employment at the place of business.

• Student(s) spend time in the business observing employees and track different tasks they complete and skills that are needed.

• Student(s) pair with an employee and shadow them for a specific amount of time. The student may ask the employee questions about their tasks, what their day looks like, and may assist with some of the tasks, if appropriate.

• Student(s) participate in a mock interview with a manager/owner to practice their skills in that area.

Our teacher or job coach would be present and would provide support to the student(s) as needed while at your place of business. The amount of time we spend at your place of business doing one of these tasks may be 1-2 hours.

OFF-SITE JOB TASKS 

Do you have tasks/projects that take up your time but could be delegated to someone else, even someone else working off-site? We would be happy to help lessen your workload while teaching work skills to our students. This could be tasks such as stuffing envelopes for a big mail out, packing or filling bags/boxes, affixing labels/stickers, etc. The most successful tasks would be those that we could set up similar to an assembly line that have clear and concrete steps. Project HOPE would be happy to pick up supplies from your place of business, complete the task on your desired timeline, and return your finish products. The amount of time we spend at your place of business doing these tasks would likely be minimal. The bulk of the work would be done in our classroom.

JOB SAMPLING EXPERIENCE

Students learn and practice specific jobs skills in a classroom setting but often need the opportunity to practice them in a real workplace, in real time. Setting up a job sampling experience allows the student to practice not only the "hard" skills needed for a job, but also the "soft" skills such as interacting with customers and other employees. Job sampling experiences are often more successful when provided many repetitions. For example, we may want to set up a weekly visit schedule for 6-9 weeks or even a semester or school year. In this model, our students would be working with and alongside your employees (with the assistance of a job coach) to complete normal/daily tasks at your place of business. Our teacher or job coach would be present and would provide support to the student(s) as needed. This could be set up for an individual student or for small groups. The amount of time we spend at your place of business doing a job sampling experience can vary but on average 2-4 hours each visit is typically a good starting point.

PAID OR UNPAID INTERNSHIPS

Internships, whether paid or unpaid, look most like typical employment. Our student(s) would typically receive onboarding training like a typical employee and have a work schedule like a typical full or part-time employee. Project HOPE staff would provide support for the student as needed, but would be aiming to fade that support. Support could transition to an outside agency such as Texas Workforce Commission or parents/family members when the student is working outside of school hours. A successful internship would transition into paid employment at your place of business or a similar business after the internship period ended. An internship period may be 6-9 weeks, a semester, or school year.

While we are looking for sites for our students to practice discrete job skills such as stocking or working a POS system, we are also looking for general workplace environments for our students to practice their soft skills. Soft skills that we may want to target include:

• Interview skills

• Appropriate workplace behavior

• Communicating with unfamiliar people

• Being on time

• Task initiation

• Requesting reasonable accommodations

The staff and students at Project HOPE are appreciative of any opportunity to collaborate with the community. We are open to any amount of time you're able to partner with us, from one-time visits to weekly or bi-weekly options. Our students do have scheduled times they are with our program, which generally range from 2-4 hour blocks of time. We will, at least initially, need to work within those time frames.

We would love to connect with you and discuss a potential partnership opportunity. Please complete this form and we'll reach out to you as soon as we can! 

Connection Form