Project SEARCH Celebrates Graduates and 10th Anniversary
There were plenty of smiles at the HSC campus on June 23, 2026, as 11 students celebrated their graduation from Project SEARCH, a one-year transition-to-work program for young adults with disabilities.
This year, the ceremony was extra special because it also marked a major milestone for our hospital. It was the 10th anniversary of Project SEARCH at HSC, a partnership that has helped many young adults with disabilities gain the skills, confidence, and experience they need to gain independence and build meaningful careers.
The celebration brought together graduates, families, HSC leaders, supporters, and Project SEARCH alumni who now work at HSC. For Meaghan Jones, a Project SEARCH instructor, seeing so many familiar faces was a reminder of the impact the program has had over the years.
“Historically, people with disabilities were confined to particular spaces. I think Project SEARCH is so important [because] it really offers a sense of belonging with your team, your colleagues. It allows you to get out into the environment and be seen, to just be in normal spaces where the larger public is.”
According to Jones, the years between leaving high school and accessing supports can be challenging for many young adults with intellectual and physical disabilities, especially when they are ready to work but could still benefit from structure, coaching, and support.
“They cannot receive their adult funding to provide supports in the community until they’re 21. If an 18-year-old with an intellectual disability decides to graduate at 18, they may have really great skills but still require some structure and support. Oftentimes what happens is they kind of jump off a cliff of support and then flounder as a result,” she said.
HSC became the first hospital-based Project SEARCH program in Canada, providing on-site training and work experience since 2016. The program at HSC is unique because it welcomes students up to 25 years old who have left school and are unemployed or underemployed.
Meaghan Jones, Project SEARCH
“Project SEARCH is so important [because] it really offers a sense of belonging with your team, your colleagues. It allows you to get out into the environment and be seen, to just be in normal spaces where the larger public is.”
Unlike traditional school-based work experience programs, students are immersed in real workplaces, learning practical employment and independent living skills while completing internships throughout the hospital.
Students complete three internships over the course of the year while receiving individualized coaching and support, Along the way, they develop skills such as communication, teamwork, professionalism, financial literacy, self-advocacy, and strategies for maintaining employment.
The program also focuses on each student’s strengths while helping them build new skills.
“Some of our students have intellectual disabilities but are fantastic at mental math and working very quickly with that. They might struggle with reading, but because they’ve struggled with reading their whole life, they’ve had to develop all these other strategies to navigate a complex world that’s often represented linguistically,” Jones said.
“They may struggle with social communication so we might develop internships that target customer service opportunities so they can be working with their strengths while they’re developing the skills that will help them to be better within those roles.”
For HSC departments, Project SEARCH is an opportunity to create more inclusive workplaces and recognize the diverse skills people with disabilities bring to their team.
“We want to be really open about inclusion. We want to be open about how to make a workplace accessible,” Jones said.
This year, eight of the 11 graduates finished the program with a job offer, with the remaining three continuing their journey toward employment. Some graduates are now working as Medical Device Reprocessing aides, patient transporters, and laundry aides at HSC. Others have found opportunities in the community as cooks, housekeepers, and seasonal sales associates.
Jones says becoming employed can have life-changing impacts for graduates.
“To have a job, it changes you in many ways. You have your own income. You have a budget that you get to manage. You become a taxpayer. I mean, you actually develop some citizenry that you maybe didn’t have prior to employment.”
Beyond building careers, Project SEARCH is helping change the way people understand disability.
“When we think about a person with a disability, oftentimes we go to what we know from popular culture, media, or a person within our own lives, someone who we have personally interacted with who had a disability,” Jones said.
But disability is complex and nuanced. Through Project SEARCH, students, mentors, and employers work together to find the right fit by understanding each person’s strengths, skills, and the supports they may need to succeed.
“What we see at Project SEARCH through work is opportunities for areas who’ve come back to us over 10 years – they understand now that disability is a gigantic spectrum,” Jones said.
After 10 years at HSC, Project SEARCH continues to show what is possible when people are given opportunities to learn, contribute, and be seen for what they can do.
– Written by Ligia Braidotti
