A trio of participants from Easterseals RISE has been working to keep Cameron Memorial Community Hospital in Angola tidy, clean and polished.
Brandi, Jim and Ronnie are participants in an Employment Readiness Academy at Cameron. Along with Easterseals staff member Veronica Diaz, they have spent every Tuesday and Thursday at Cameron, beginning in July. Their last day there will be Tuesday, Nov. 12.
Employment Readiness Academies are limited term work experiences in which individuals learn personal skills as well as transferable job skills through hands-on training.
In a typical shift at Cameron, Brandi, Jim and Ronnie clean parts of two floors of the hospital, one floor before lunch and the other afterward. They vacuum, dust and wipe down surfaces. They pay particularly close attention to high-touch areas, such as the arms of chairs in waiting areas.
“It’s pretty good,” Jim says of working at Cameron. He’s had some experience working in the community before. He worked in the laundry of a hotel, for example, and he and Ronnie both worked in a Burger King together.
“It brings back memories,” Jim said, referring to working with Ronnie again.
For Jim, it also allows him to work side-by-side with his wife, Brandi. This is her second year participating in the Employment Readiness Academy at Cameron. The couple has been together for 20 years and married for eight years, Diaz said.
Easterseals pays the participants a stipend, but there are benefits beyond the pay, Diaz said.
“They’re getting to be more social in the community,” Diaz said. “They’re getting to be more independent.”
Regarding staff at the hospital, Diaz said, “Everybody here is wonderful. They’re very friendly.”
Training comes day-by-day as the participants do the work. To succeed in their work at Cameron, participants need to learn things beyond the nitty-gritty of cleaning.
One of the things people they need to learn are the restrictions imposed by HIPAA, the federal regulations on confidentiality in health care. For example: If they see someone they know, even other staff members or people who take part in Easterseals RISE programs, they are not allowed to tell others that they saw them at the hospital.
“Whatever you see here, it stops here,” Diaz tells them.
The cleaning they do is crucial for the hospital. Their two days of work each week help the hospital staff accomplish more and cover for vacancies among the staff.
“They sure do help. We can see the difference they make on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” said Jason Mosser, director of environmental services at Cameron.
“It’s a great program,” Mosser said. “We get a lot out of it, and so do they. … What they’re doing is stuff we’re behind on.”
This is the second year Cameron Hospital has hosted an Easterseals Employment Readiness Academy. Mosser said he would be open to hiring someone who completed the academy, although it hasn’t happened yet.
“If I had a position open, and one of them met the requirements and applied, I would definitely consider them,” he said.