Community Connections celebrates graduates entering the workforce in Lawrence

Families filled Community Connections at Pinckney on Friday morning as Lawrence celebrated two programs designed to carry young adults with disabilities from school-based support into adult work and independence. The ceremony put a spotlight on a local pipeline that runs through 810 W. Sixth St., the University of Kansas and Lawrence Memorial Hospital, where students spent the year learning job skills and rotating through real workplaces.

C-Tran, the Community Transition Program, serves young adults ages 18 to 21 and focuses on direct instruction, independent living and self-care skills, functional academics, and pre-vocational and vocational training. This year’s C-Tran graduates were Hudson Boyd, Chris Grant, Becca Jackson, Finn Lechtenberg, Ford Lechtenberg, Rachel Miller and Ashley Willow. Project SEARCH’s Class of 2026 included Tavaris Davie, Jacob Daugherty, Jacob Gale, Leo Nathan, Cameron Jackson, Charlotte Baldwin-Faling, Isaiah Sellars, Steven LaMarche, Gabriel Gibson and Sam Spaeth.

The programs are built around more than classroom lessons. Lawrence Public Schools describes Project SEARCH as an intensive academic year of career development and internship experience for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with a goal of integrated, competitive employment. The model began at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in 1996 and has grown into a large international network. National transition materials describe it as a 9- to 12-month internship program with three rotations, each lasting about 10 to 12 weeks.

In Lawrence, the off-campus work experience came from KU and LMH Health. Interns rotated through the KU bookstore, Ambler Student Recreation Center, the Natural History Museum and dining halls, along with LMH Health departments including facilities, materials management, the cafeteria and skilled nursing areas. The breadth of those placements matters because the programs are not preparing students for one narrow job path; they are exposing them to the kinds of workplace routines, expectations and supervision that employers in Douglas County actually use.

At the ceremony, Community Connections administrator Jenna Viscomi told students that leaving familiar routines can feel big, but that a person’s value is not tied to someone else’s timeline. That message landed in a room where parents, mentors and work-site supervisors have spent years helping students move toward the next stage.

Lawrence Public Schools has housed specialized and alternative education services at Community Connections at Pinckney since 2023, making the building a steady hub for transition-age students as well as secondary therapeutic classrooms and a suspension alternative program. Friday’s celebration followed similar C-Tran and Project SEARCH graduations in 2023, 2024 and 2025, underscoring how much the programs have become part of the district’s yearly transition system.