Sponsored by the Nisonger Center at OSU and the Ohio Rehabilitation Services Commission, Way-to-Work brings together mentors and high school students with disabilities.
Says Margo Izzo, Ph.D., Director of the program,
“We’ve been so excited to see how our pioneering on-line career preparation and transition curriculum has promoted good discussions between mentors and our students. The students think more broadly now—one student was looking into two possible future careers—business or psychology. Then, he developed an interest in criminology. He used websites he learned about in our Envision IT curriculum to explore careers in criminology, then talked to his mentor about the pros and cons of going into business, psychology or criminology!”
Here, mentoring worked side-by-side with expanded sources of information on-line. Longer term, the project hopes to show that young people with special needs can, with the help of a mentor, achieve higher levels of employment, better suited to their skills and interests—and with higher pay.
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