Reflecting on the first year of partnership with SFUSD Project Opportunity Works

This post is a follow-up to: http://www.stanthonysf.org/blog/2013/07/19/project-opportunity-works-and-the-free-clothing-program=

Our Free Clothing Program has recently finished its first year of partnership with San Francisco Unified School District’s Project Opportunity Works (POWS).  This program pairs up high school students with different work sites where the students can develop entry level work experience to prepare them for the future.  Our Free Clothing Program was a work site for several students during the 2013-2014 school year.

I spoke with Aubrey Green, a job coach for the program, to gain his insights on how our first year working together has been.

1. How was the first year of partnership with St. Anthony’s Free Clothing Program?

It was a great start since it was the first year and it was a way to get our students retail experience dealing with St. Anthony’s guests, which is valuable experience, and working with clothes.  The partnership has been really beneficial and is something we want to continue into next year.  Perhaps, we could even expand to other programs of St. Anthony’s.  We definitely were happy and felt like St. Anthony’s was happy with what the students did.  The students got what they needed, which was experience and learning how to take responsibility.

2. What did the students learn from their time at St. Anthony’s?

The students learned active listening skills, being able to really listen to what they needed to do, on focus on directions.  Their duties required them to stay on task, learn time management, and switch between tasks.  Their learning objectives were information ordering (ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules), reading comprehension (understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents), and monitoring (assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action).

3. How did you see the students grow over the year?

I saw the students grow a lot.  One of them barely interacted with people due to her speech impediment and language barrier, but over time, it was nice to see her grow and communicate with other volunteers.  Most of students in POWS have a big issue with interacting with others and both students at St. Anthony’s were able to grow in their communications skills, be more open in learning how to interact in the workplace, and be mature in that aspect. Before their time at St. Anthony’s, both students had no work experience and had some discipline issues, but both of them did not have any disciplinary issues while at St. Anthony’s.

4. Will POWS be partnering with St. Anthony’s again?

Yes, we look forward to doing that and hope to expand so we can serve our students with other interests.

5. What were your thoughts and feelings at POWS graduation?

My thoughts were that I was just really proud of the students, a lot of the students have started things and not finished them so it was a culmination of all the work the students have done.  It was nice to see how happy they were and some parents showed up to the event.  I was proud and it was nice to see it all come together and it was worth it seeing them grow up and mature into young adults.

5. Any closing thoughts?

We’re always looking to expand with other sites to place students at (e.g. hospitality, food service, entry level positions in retail)  There are so many students at the school district that can be served in the program that are seniors in special education.  People with direct knowledge of work sites that would be good for teens to gain and improve their skills in the workplace can contact our Transition Partnership Program Specialist Bedford Williamson at williamsonb@sfusd.edu.  Our website is: http://www.sfusd.edu/en/programs-and-services/special-education/transition/transition-partnership-program.html