Expanding a Vocational Program for Special Needs Students
Expanding the Bellcate Vocational Program
Over the past year, I have been fortunate enough to intern at the Bellcate School. My internship gave me the ability to work with special needs students in a variety of classroom settings. Not only has Bellcate taught me an abundance of valuable knowledge about special education, but my internship also allowed me to connect to the Vermont community in ways that my college education previously had not. After only about a month of interning at Bellcate, I knew that I wanted to give back to the school in the form of my senior capstone project. During my first quarter at Bellcate, I was given the opportunity to work with a student in their off-site vocational program. I saw first hand the benefits of the school’s work program and how it was giving students who would be overlooked in a mainstream school setting the ability to do meaningful work in the community. To understand why Bellcate and their vocational program is so crucial to its students and the community as a whole, you need to understand what makes Bellcate special.
What is Bellcate?
Bellcate is a school that specializes in the education of youth with diverse needs. The school works to develop individualized programs for each student, which identifies and addresses the specific and unique needs of each student. When developing individualized programs for students, the school focuses on the student’s strengths and interests, which leads to an effective education plan. All classes are student-centered, which means staff can focus on one on one learning with each student. Bellcate not only works with students but also works with the student’s family systems to achieve continuing education and support outside of school. Cultural competence is another essential aspect of Bellcate; by promoting cultural competence, the students can understand themselves and the world around them. And lastly, all individualized plans for students at Bellcate have strong community ties, which are evident in community projects and work experience.
Bellcate uses a three-stage personal development model, which consists of the stages of exploration, understanding, and action. In the exploration stage, students work on building and developing a strong therapeutic relationship with staff and other students that will serve as a foundation to facilitate and support growth and change. The team at Bellcate uses nonjudgmental acceptance to communicate empathy, respect, and genuine care so students can come to accept themselves. Students are encouraged with staff support to tell their stories and explore their strengths and interests. This stage also focuses on identifying and meeting the basic physiological and safety needs of each student. In the understanding stage, staff supports students in constructing new insight and understanding. Staff assists students in determining their role in their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. In this stage, staff act as helpers who provide honest feedback and redirection to students. The student, staff, and their support team can begin to determine goals that are consistent with strengths, interests, values, and abilities. Students in this stage identify new decision-making strategies and begin to confront old scripts. During the Action Stage, staff assists students in making decisions that benefit themselves, which includes planning for the future. Staff support students with information, skills, resources, and strategies to achieve desired outcomes. In this stage, students are held to a higher level of expectation and accountability.
The Bellcate Vocational Program
There are a variety of programs that exists alongside traditional academics that are available to students based on interests, including animal care, athletics, farm to table, music, peer mentoring, performing arts, visual arts, vocational, and wellness. My capstone project is focused on expanding and contributing to the Bellcate vocational program. There are two levels of vocational work at Bellcate: the vocational junior and the vocational senior. Students participating in the vocational junior program are between the ages of 11–14. This level focuses on growing life and employment skills, development, and training; staff help to facilitate learning within established routines by providing direct instruction and guidance. Development and training opportunities in the vocational junior program include community service assignments, school-related daily jobs, introduction to seasonal landscaping, and introduction to the trades. The vocational senior programs serve students ages 15–22. This program focuses on assessment, training, and evaluation of the development of transferable life skills and employment skills. At the age of 15, students will begin to develop plans for post-secondary education. Students in this stage identify their needs and interests, and then they are placed in related vocational senior training opportunities. Through these training opportunities, students will be evaluated and matched with their most successful work environment for participation in community-based competitive employment. Training opportunities in the vocational senior program include community service assignments, school-related daily jobs, trades, seasonal landscaping within a work crew, maple sugaring from installation to boiling, internships through established relationships with community businesses, work experience through established relationships with Vocational Rehabilitation and Vermont Association of Business Industry and Rehabilitation, and paid employment through established relationships with community businesses, vocational rehabilitation, and VABIR.
My Project
Over the spring semester, working along Bellcate, I identified the needs of the community. I was presented with the idea to help aid and assist the Bellcate vocational program. Although the vocational program is already a well-developed core aspect at the school, there was a need to work on how the program presents to the community and a need for more small, local, and community-based opportunities for students to choose from. The initial step of this project was to develop a packet that can be presented to potential businesses that explained the school and the vocational program. I created a comprehensive packet that showcased the hard work of the students in various settings but mainly focused on the current students and their already existing vocational jobs. This packet was used and will continue to be used to contact a potential business that would be a good fit for students.
The second aspect of this project was to identify businesses that would be a good match for students. Specifically, I focused on identifying businesses that would of high interest to the students currently enrolled in the vocational senior program and the older students in the junior program. Since I had already been interning at the school for a few months, I had well-developed relationships with many students who would benefit from expanding the vocational program. The most valuable information I received was directly from students about what kind of work experience they would be most interested in participating in. I found that many students were excited about this project because it meant that they would potentially get to work at businesses that offered jobs of high interest to the students. Another valuable resource that I consulted for this project was the parents and guardians of students. Although parents and guardians did not do much to identify potential businesses, their support and encouragement for this project was inspiring. Sitting down with families gave me insight into how much Bellcate and vocational programs offered to their students. After talking with parents and guardians, I knew that it was essential to keep their student’s interests in mind when identifying the potential business.
After making a comprehensive list of students and their interests, I was able to do some detective work in and around Burlington. Every time I went out into the community, I went to local businesses that I thought might be a good fit for our students. I found many businesses that would be a good fit, such as coffee shops and cafes. As I identified potential businesses, COVID-19 shut down Vermont. I had already reached out to many businesses, but I knew that this would throw a wrench into my project. I shifted a bit when this happened. I kept in contact with businesses who were responsive and then contacted businesses that have had previous relationships working with our students. I identified other potential opportunities that would be available to our students at these businesses.
The third aspect of my project was to develop a website that would be eventually added to the Bellcate website, which showcased the variety of job opportunities that are available to students. However, the work on this project does not end with the publication of the website page prototype. Going forward, I am looking forward to being employed by Bellcate as a staff member. I will continue to work alongside the vocation team to help develop more content that explains the vocational program’s mission and to continue to expand on the opportunities available to the students at Bellcate.
