Welcome to New York State Promise; emerging voices. Today's topic, on the path to success. This is a special follow up with Jaden, who is a Promise student in Cooney Island. We first introduced you to Jaden in early 2015. During our initial Pod Cast, Jaden's mother, Rita, had expressed why she had signed on to Promise in her hope that her son Jaden would develop new skills, confidence, and abilities to secure employment when he's older. In this Pod Cast, we check in with Jaden two years later. He is now working to improve his communication skills and learning how to work in a business in the community.
I've known Jaden for, from the time he came, you know he first came to us and he's grown tremendously. Now his willingness to engage, you know in a variety of tasks, work tasks, tasks around the school building, you know and his academic work is, has really improved tremendously. The opportunity he has here to get his, you know volunteer work in this, you know in a restaurant in the school's community is really giving him real life, hands on work experience that will carry over, you know to various areas of his life.
Jaden comes here to Grimaldi's Pizza in Cooney Island in the mornings to help prepare the restaurant for opening.
What we do is we try to get them to go up on a work site and see what their capabilities are, how well they, you know how well they do, and how further, you know they can improve their skills and all. For instance, when Jaden came here, in particular, it was a little difficult for him to adjust and all and you know, but he's gotten so much better over time. You know, he's really gotten so much better over time and he's doing every task that needs to be done here, Jaden is doing it.
Promise and Jaden's school work together. The school has arranged for this volunteer work try out where Jaden is gaining experience. Meanwhile, after school, Jaden receives Promise services which are currently concentrating on teaching how to attend to tasks and improving his communication skills. One of the major challenges that service providers are working to overcome in Brooklyn and in New York City as a whole, is transportation.
In terms of transportation in New York City, it's been a hurdle for the providers to be able to get the students the services, to get them to a location where they can provide the services. So by having Jaden and a few of the other Promise students stay after school and have a provider come and work with them there, at the school, it enables us to have that location where, you know the student, Jaden is familiar and he's comfortable, and that allows, it provides transportation for Jaden to go home at the, you know at that after school session is over.
Jaden's Promise case manager, Mary Christopher, says she would like to see Jaden move into another work experience in the community strictly through Promise in the near future, to give him more opportunities. That also fits in with Jaden's mother's hope for him two years ago.
I really would like to see where he can work, be able to get, you know work a job, you know, function in society without, without minimum help.
The New York State Promise Project produced this video under cooperative agreement with the US Department of Education.