FARMINGTON – A new Rehabilitation Services Program that connects high school students with disabilities and University of Maine at Farmington students has proven to be beneficial for everyone involved.
With the Job Club, UMF students in the program get hands-on, professional-level vocational counseling experience and the high school students facing a transitional period in their lives have received meaningful discussions about their futures.
UMF students have been advising about 20 high school students enrolled in the special education programs at Spruce Mountain in Jay and Leavitt in Turner this semester.
Jewel Jones, UMF associate professor of rehabilitation services, started this semester in having some of her students meet once a week with high school students, who voluntarily signed up for the program, to talk about their aspirations for future careers and possible paths towards achieving their goals. The program is under the guidance of Jones, Wendy Allen and Britany Douglass, Spruce Mountain vocational rehabilitation counselors; Cyndy Paradis, Spruce Mountain special education teacher; and Sean Keegan, a vocational counselor with the Maine Department of Labor.
The program gives UMF students an opportunity to practice the skills they’ve learned in the classroom, Jones said. At the same time, the high school students get information from the UMF students on the skills they’ll need to pursue the job they’re interested in going after. The sessions address issues like how to navigate around the obstacles students with disabilities might face towards securing a job or for those who want to attend college.
During the sessions, the high school students expressed a lot of interest in what life on the UMF campus is like.
In her senior year, UMF student Isabelle Bailey of Fairfield, said she talked with the high school students about the clubs and other activities available at UMF that she fits in between studying and attending class. When discussions turned towards finding a job after graduation, she found that topic one she is also currently focused on.
“We’re going though a lot of the same things they are,” Bailey said. “It’s been very natural to work with them.”
Ian Vail of Norway, a junior in the Rehabilitation Services Program who has worked in the Job Club sessions with Bailey, said, “I’ve gotten experience I didn’t think I’d get until later. I thought it would be in my last semester of my senior year when I’d get to do it.”
Bailey said she thought this was something she might want a career in but after working with the high school students in real life counseling situations, it was confirmed for her.
“I know now I want to go into vocational rehab, a helping profession. I’ve gotten so much hands-on experience,” Bailey said of the program.
All the students look forward to the discussion sessions, Jones said.
Keegan, a state vocational rehab counselor who works with high school students in transition, said bringing together college age students and high school students together is ideal.
UMF students facilitate the discussions with high school students who are their peers, Keegan said. To Vail and Bailey he added, “You guys are very important to them.”
Jones said the intent is to continue the program next semester and expand it into four or five local high schools.
