The Nicola Valley Institute of Technology’s (NVIT) Steps Forward program is hoping to strike a formal partnership with the City of Merritt that involves job placement for its students.
The program aims to give students with developmental disabilities more independence by having them take one to three courses per semester in an area of study of their choosing. After four to five years of schooling, students obtain a certificate of completion.
The work in each program is modified to meet each individual’s abilities.
At a city council committee of the whole meeting in February, program facilitator Lisa DeWinter described the way students are taught as being at a small, incremental approach.
“For example, for me and you, it would be step one and step two. For a student that I work with it would be step one: A, B, C, D, E, F, G all the way through, and then you would get to [step] two,” DeWinter told council.
The post secondary institution has offered the program for five years and this spring will produce its first graduate, DeWinter said.
“Unfortunately, we have systems in place that make getting meaningful employment very difficult,” DeWinter told council.
At the meeting she asked the city to provide inclusive hiring practises.
She told the Herald that this would involve taking the most flexible position with the city and modifying it to provide one of their students with a full-time job.
No direction was provided to city staff from council at the committee meeting, but chief administrative officer Shawn Boven told the Herald he intends to follow up with council and discuss the possible partnership with the city’s corporate officer.
