MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A West Virginia University Hospitals program aimed to increase workforce participation for high school students and recent grads with mild to moderate intellectual and developmental disabilities has celebrated another graduating class.
Project SEARCH has officially graduated eight students as part of their fifth graduating class since the program was implemented in 2019. The students, all of whom are recent graduates from four West Virginia county public school systems, will now be a part of the WVU Hospitals system or be employed in a health care-related job within the Mountain State. The graduates were highlighted by Project SEARCH instructor Nick Lafferty and WVU Hospitals Vice President of Human Resources and Project SEARCH Executive Sponsor Colleen Sybert on WAJR’s Talk of the Town on Wednesday.
“We had eight this year in this fifth graduating class, so we’re glad to see the number of applicants go up every year and the number of interns who are actually getting to graduate,” said WVU Hospitals Project SEARCH instructor Nick Lafferty. “To send out to other jobs within the hospital and the surrounding community.”
According to both Sybert and Lafferty, the eight students who took on internship roles as part of the WVU Hospitals iteration of Project SEARCH represented schools from Monongalia, Marion, Preston, and Taylor counties. During the program, the interns participated in rotations in jobs best suited to their needs and interests, with each rotation lasting for about eight to ten weeks. With the jobs varying from child development services and patient care assistants to administrative services. With chances to create resumes and practice job interview skills ahead of completing the program, Project SEARCH educators feel those who exit the program are given the skills needed to immediately serve as a part of any healthcare system.
“The type of jobs our interns get varies,” said Lafferty. “We have interns that work in everything from nutrition, environmental services, to perioperative care, which is when they prepare for surgeries and prepare the operating rooms for both before and after surgery, to nursing positions.”
Sybert also noted on WAJR’s Talk of the Town that the growth of Project SEARCH has been reflected not only in the steady increase of participating interns but also in the results shown in those who participated. This was noticeable in the day-to-day interactions with interns who worked with healthcare professionals as part of their rotations, with over half of the interns who have participated in the program finding jobs within the WVU Hospitals system. This trend continued for the 2025 graduates, with six out of the eight interns now working at either Ruby Memorial or another hospital located near where they live.
“Many of the students come in and they’re shy, they’ve only worked in the school system, or perhaps they’ve never even been inside a healthcare facility unless they’ve been here for an appointment,” said Sybert. “And just the change that you can see from day one to graduation is really remarkable.”
Project SEARCH was originally established at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital back in 1996, with WVU Hospitals being the first healthcare system in the Mountain State to implement such a program. Much like other interns who participated in previous iterations of Project SEARCH at WVUH, the majority of the 2025 graduates are either currently placed in positions of employment or are in the process of getting employed in places such as Grafton City Hospital, Bright Horizons Child Development Center, and the numerous wings within Ruby Memorial Hospital. The hope is to continue that trend heading into the future.
“Owning the navigation that they have throughout the hospital, it’ll really just boost their confidence in an exponential way,” said Sybert on the benefit of Project SEARCH for the interns. “But the departments that are helping to serve them and mentor them, it has positively impacted those folks as well.”