Baltimore: Our story
The Baltimore Start on Success
(SOS) program stands as an excellent transition assistance model
providing work-based learning opportunities for high school
seniors in special education, thus enabling smooth transitions
from school to work. What began in 1997 as a modest program
drawing from a single public high school now includes interns
from all 28 Baltimore City public high schools.
Through a partnership with
Humanim, one of Maryland’s largest non-profits, Baltimore’s
Start on Success program places interns with the University of
Maryland Medical System, the University of Maryland at
Baltimore, and the Johns Hopkins Hospitals. Program
participants receive job coaching, classroom instruction, and
support from worksite mentors. Funding through the
Division of Rehabilitative Services (DORS) enables the Start
on Success staff to provide job placement and 90-day retention
services.
By the end of his or her year within the
program, each participant has gained valuable career skills,
practical experience, and the increased self-esteem that comes
from a successful and realistic work experience.
Our
Accomplishments
The Baltimore-area Start on Success program
is recognized locally and nationally as a model transition
program. We now serve approximately 50 students each year, and
recently exceeded our target by having 98% of participants
successfully complete their internships. This was an
improvement of 10% over the previous year, and represents the
lowest attrition since the program’s inception.
We also met our goal in a very
important real-world statistic: 100% of our students earn
above-minimum wages. Although funding remains a challenge, we
are pleased that Baltimore City Public School System has renewed
its contract with Humanim. BCPSS will pay $30,000 toward Start
on Success’s staffing and operational costs—helping ensure that
each student receives the intensive support critical to his or
her success.
At Start on Success, we strive to
offer ever-increasing benefits to the community we serve. A new
grant from the
Annie E. Casey Foundation will help us do that by providing
career assessments to 18 students; DORS will fund assessments
for the remaining participants.
Our
Challenges
Our biggest challenge remains funding the
student stipends, which are essential to ensuring realistic work
experiences. Because of decreased funding, Baltimore SOS has
had to modify its internship structure to include an unpaid
four-week probationary period. While this change proved to have
an unanticipated motivational effect for the students (who felt
challenged to “earn” their paychecks through performance), we
continue to seek alternate sources of funding.
Our
Future
We anticipate the career assessments
provided by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and DORS will become a
valuable component of the Baltimore SOS program. These tests
identify student aptitudes, limitations, interests, and barriers
to employment. Most importantly, each student develops a
realistic career goal and a concrete plan to achieve that goal.
To make sure SOS serves as many students as
possible, we will also focus on early and accurate
identification of potential participants. Start on Success will
work closely with BCPSS personnel and the Transitioning Youth
Unit of Baltimore City to improve the process for integrating
eligible students into our program.
Together with our strategic partners, we
look forward to another highly successful year of supporting
special education students in their transition from school to
work.
