SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Six high school students with disabilities were recognized Friday in Scranton after spending the summer improving city parks while gaining paid work experience through Pennsylvania\u2019s MY Work program.<\/p>\n
Richard Bagley, Jan Carlos Bello Cardoso, Aaric Bernard, Keyla Guevera, Andrew Islas and Rhys Jones completed projects that included painting murals, gardening, mulching, general maintenance and repairs. The students were honored during a celebration at Weston Field for their work and contributions to the community.<\/p>\n
MY Work, created by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor & Industry\u2019s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR), provides high school students with disabilities opportunities to gain paid, real-world work experience in their own communities. OVR covers participant wages, while community partners provide worksite training and support.<\/p>\n
Nancy Walker, Pennsylvania secretary of Labor and Industry, said the program helped students build skills such as teamwork, reliability and completing assigned tasks, with many getting their first paid work experience.<\/p>\n
“It’s an opportunity for a paid work experience for young people who are in high school with disabilities to see what the work world looks like. And we know statistically that young people with disabilities who have paid work experiences in high school are four times more likely to be able to find work and be successfully employed when they graduate,” said Walker.<\/p>\n
Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP), a national nonprofit that provides community-based services and support to young people and families, has partnered with OVR on MY Work in Scranton for six years. YAP provides staff and worksite support to participating students, while the City of Scranton provides local work opportunities through its parks.<\/p>\n
More than 1,000 students participated at more than 250 MY Work sites across all 67 Pennsylvania counties this year, marking the first time the program reached every county in the state. Since its statewide expansion, MY Work has provided paid work experiences to more than 3,600 young Pennsylvanians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SCRANTON, LACKAWANNA CO. (WOLF) \u2014 Six high school students with disabilities were recognized Friday in Scranton after spending…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":265723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-265722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=265722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/265723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=265722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=265722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=265722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}