January 10, 2012 07:00 PM UTC

It's All About the Kids...It Really Is.

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• by: Middle of the Road

There are programs in the state of Colorado that really are about our kids and their future. I had the rare opportunity to participate in one of them. It changed my life and I’m pretty sure it changed a kid named “Michael” (not his real name), too.  

The School to Work Alliance Program is a program run through the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Vocational Rehabilitation. It is a collaborative initiative between the DVR and local school districts and is supported by the Colorado Department of Education.

An applicant between the ages of 16 and 25 applies to SWAP and then fills out a variety of paperwork for the SWAP coordinator to get an idea what his interests are, what level he is at education wise, and some background on his past.

Once accepted into the program, the student begins his journey. From day one, the coordinator follows the student every step of the way through the program including one on one regular interaction with the applicant, as well as communication with both the parents and the student’s teachers.

SWAP is designed to provide employment-related assistance to youth and young adults with disabilities, who are experiencing mild to moderate barriers to employment. Disabilities can take the form of physical, emotional or learning disabilities. SWAP provides assistance that not only produces a desirable employment outcome (such as a career-path job), but also teaches appropriate job seeking and job retention skills that can be utilized throughout a lifetime.  

Once enrolled in SWAP, the student has the one on one, full time, individual monitoring of somebody who is paying attention and calling him on his shit every single step of the way. SWAP coordinators monitor each student for an additional year after the student has successfully completed his program.

Once the coordinator feels the student is doing well in the program, making progress and is ready, she sets up a ghost interview for the student to sharpen his interviewing skills, with the hope of placing the student in a paying job for 90 days. The coordinator will even come to his place of employment and stay with the new employee throughout his work day if he is getting off track.

SWAP offers some pretty enticing incentives to small business owners and employers. If you hire one of their students, the program offers WOTC (work opportunity tax credit)–a federal tax credit that reduces an employer’s federal tax liability by as much as $2,400 per qualified “new hire.”  

SWAP provides workers compensation covered by the State of Colorado. All the employer is on the hook for is deducting Social Security and Medicare from the employee’s paycheck.

In addition to the tax credit, SWAP pays 75% of the employee’s first month’s wages, 50% of the second month, and 25% of the third month. In other words, they pay half of your employee’s wages for his 90 day stint.

Now, the downside–these are teens and young adults that are running out of choices and chances. There is a strong likelihood that they will fail to complete their 90 day employment mandate. In order to successfully complete a SWAP program, they must be in your employment and doing a good job for 3 months, showing up on time, not calling in sick, not slacking on the job. In other words, SWAP expects them to be a real employee who meets real life expectations.

Who are these kids? These are teenagers to young adults with a variety of strikes against them ranging from physical disabilities to learning or emotional disabilities, kids that are failing school, kids that have spent quality time in Juvy Hall and have criminal records. Some have done nothing wrong at all but simply have limited employment options, usually due to learning disabilities. They will never go to college. They will be lucky to complete their GED and have been pushed through the system, from grade to grade.

So how did I get involved? In August, I got a call from an old friend of mine that is now a SWAP coordinator at our local high school. She asked me for what seemed like a pretty easy favor–would I be willing to “ghost interview” a SWAP student? A ghost interview is for a student who has been enrolled in the SWAP program for six months; he attends a real life job interview to learn how to polish his interviewing skills in front of an actual employer.

Practice with the coordinator is over. This is the precursor to the real thing–going in front of an employer for a real job to complete the last stage of his program.

I said, “Sure, why not? I love this idea.  Let’s do it. I’d like to see what your program is about and I’ve got spare time on Friday.”

The day before the interview, my friend called and said she had a second applicant named Michael that was also ready for his first ghost interview. Could he come along? Again, sure. Why not? Good experience for both kids and a chance for me to do something community oriented for an old friend.

Both students came to the interview. They were as different as night and day. My heart said go with “Dan,” the original and first applicant, a young man in his early twenties. The coordinator had told me quite a bit about him and his major hitch in life was a physically disabling injury. I liked Dan immediately. Sweet, shy, reticent and kindhearted. He wore his heart on his sleeve and I loved his compassion.

My head said if I were actually hiring one of these two, go with “Michael,” the second applicant, a seventeen year old teenager who had been added on to the interview process at the last minute. Why? For the simple reason that unlike Dan, he would be up to the physical tasks required of the job.

After the interview, the coordinator called me and asked for feedback. I gave her my impressions of both candidates and we discussed what areas they could improve on in future interviews.

We got off topic when I mentioned that my current employee was a deadbeat and often a no show. I couldn’t wait to fire him as soon as busy season was over. I also noted that I would love to fire him sooner but simply was too busy during our tourist season to let him go.

My dear friend and SWAP coordinator then informed me that both applicants were actually looking for jobs to complete their final stage of the SWAP program. I desperately needed an employee from Labor Day until the first week of January this year. My problem was that I was heading into slow season and didn’t have the money to really keep an employee on past mid October. Estes Park is a tourist town and business comes to a screeching halt with a couple of holiday exceptions.

On the other hand, my current employee sucked and with SWAP’s incentives for employers, it was a win/win situation for a small business owner like me and I decided to go for it.

I went with my head and chose Michael. He looked like he could handle the physicality of the job. I had a gut feeling about him that I couldn’t put into words. I figured he couldn’t be any worse than the 20 something loser that was currently getting himself fired.  

Truthfully, I was unimpressed with Michael during his interview. He was twitchy, fidgety and seemed to have a fairly short attention span. He looked bored during the interview. He looked like he wished he was anywhere else in the world other than my office. Color me unimpressed. Yet, for inexplicable reasons, I chose him over Dan. Realistically, I prepared myself for the worst and hoped for the best.

My new employee “Michael” has been diagnosed with dyslexia, ADHD, another learning disability that I couldn’t even pronounce, multiple run ins with the local police, a juvenile record, and three weeks after coming on board with me, was expelled from high school for a full year. He has third grade writing skills, has worked multiple “special education” programs and year after year, with failing grades, moved right on through the system.

How a 17 year old teenager with a third grade writing level and who cannot read anything written in cursive passed from grade to grade is probably a subject for a whole other diary. Long story short, Michael moved through the system, stealing electronics for a couple of years and failing time and again to show up for class and kept on moving up grade after grade. That is, until the school system had enough of his disruptive and delinquent behavior and decided to expel him for something that was entirely his fault–carrying marijuana paraphernalia onto a high school campus.

Michael was about to fall through the cracks for good. Jail was looking like his future career. A life of crime wasn’t even in the cards since he had a habit of getting caught every time he committed one. I’d say the list was pretty short of people who ever expected him to be anything more than a fuck up or incarcerated.

I know he has brought plenty of misery onto himself. I also know that his reputation in this town now precedes him which undercuts him at every turn. His juvenile delinquent friends aren’t helping, either.

His parents, in desperation, asked a teacher at his high school if there were any viable alternatives left that they could try. And that’s where SWAP came on board. And that’s how I met Michael.

Michael. Ah, Michael. He is brilliant, sweet, witty, charming and full of potential. He can fix virtually anything that breaks, usually by jerry rigging it. He knows how to help me use programs on my computer that I didn’t even know existed. He has a sense of humor that is off the charts. He sometimes makes me laugh so hard, it hurts to breathe. He’s wonderfully affectionate with the dogs, diligent about his work duties and my clients love him. (He made out like a bandit at Christmas–he got so many gifts, mostly cash, that his dad confronted him and asked him if he was stealing again.)

Michael and I developed trust early on. He started telling me about personal stuff, both the good and the bad. We had heart to heart talks on multiple occasions, especially about messing up your life and putting it back together, an area I know a little something about.

We got into the routine of me giving him a ride home every evening since he doesn’t have a car and rode his bike or skateboarded to work every day. During the car rides, we shared a couple of truly outstanding sunsets and several near fatal misses with elk walking down the middle of the highway in the dark. We became friends.

We figured out early on that he can read pretty damn well if things are typed out, not written. With SWAP employees, you muddle through as you go along and keep finding ways that work for both you and your prodigy. And with a little luck, you make it work for both of you.

We hit plenty of bumps in the road along the way. And SWAP was there for every single bump and a couple of face to face interventions. And we made it. We made it work and then some. Michael not only made his 90 days, he stayed on an extra month with me as my paid employee. His last day was Friday.

And because he made it through SWAP successfully, he got on the short list for Job Corps in Darby, Montana. He got chosen and approved in December and is on his way to their campus tomorrow. Job Corps offers a variety of career programs for students to choose from; they can stay at Job Corp for up to 2 years. Students live in dormitories on campus and have full health insurance benefits.

Michael will be completing his GED and has settled on studying both Welding and Forestry. Instead of spending the rest of his adult life selling drugs, sitting in jail or preparing fast food, Michael has a real future with a real career ahead of him.

So yes, this is a personal tale and a simultaneous plug for SWAP, for a program that took on a kid with a dim future and gave him the chance at a brand new life.

One final and very personal note, if you are considering looking into SWAP for your business, let me share something with you. I’m not certain who got more out of this experience but I’m pretty sure it was me. I got the chance to participate in a program that focuses on the kids we are giving up on in society. I got the opportunity to actively play a role in helping a kid redeem himself with some measure of grace, watch him approach a crossroads in his life and head down a path towards a real future. And at the end of the day, I got not just an employee but a friend that I not only treasure but will miss like mad every single day.

And you know what? I think Michael is gonna make it. I don’t know for sure, but I have a good feeling about his chances.