Project SEARCH graduates gain hospital skills, confidence in Duluth

Three Project SEARCH interns graduated from Essentia Health’s St. Mary’s Hospital, turning a hospital training program into a Duluth workforce pipeline. The milestone mattered well beyond the ceremony: it showed how a major employer in St. Louis County can help young adults with disabilities move from school-based support toward paid work.

At St. Mary’s Medical Center, interns learned in a real hospital setting rather than a classroom alone. Project SEARCH is a business-led collaboration for young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, usually lasting 9 to 12 months and pairing classroom instruction with multiple internships at a host site. Minnesota’s Project SEARCH portal says the model requires a host business, a school, Vocational Rehabilitation Services, a community service provider and a disability services agency, and state officials describe it as a workforce alternative for a student’s last year of high school.

Ben Berg said the program opens opportunities for people of all abilities and helps participants see themselves as capable employees, not as people defined by a disability. Josh Ohman said he learned practical tasks and grew comfortable with hospital routines, while his father said mentors and job coaches helped him push through difficult days and recognize progress as it came. Shawna Anderson said the graduates had already proved they could do more than they thought possible, and the next step was matching them with jobs that fit their strengths and interests.

The graduation also pointed to a broader labor-market question in Duluth and across the Northland, where employers regularly talk about workforce shortages and the need to keep young adults in the region. Minnesota program materials cite a 76% competitive integrated employment rate for interns, one reason Project SEARCH is treated as a workforce strategy, not just a support program. Nationally, Project SEARCH says it operates at more than 400 host sites, and Minnesota materials say it can take eight to 12 months to plan and launch a site once a host business is identified.

Essentia’s downtown campus helps explain why the program works there. The Vision Northland project was the largest private investment in Duluth’s history, and the new St. Mary’s Medical Center opened in 2023 with roughly 930,000 to 940,000 square feet of space, offering a wide range of departments where interns can build job skills. Minnesota has also seen the model endure elsewhere: Children’s Minnesota marked 10 years of partnership in 2022 and said it was among the first two Project SEARCH programs in the state.