40. Community Need The Strategic Ohio Council for Higher Education (SOCHE) requests funding to kick off a world-class internship program for students with disabilities across the region that is focused on in-demand occupations. This internship model, called the Bridging Abilities, will expose disabled high school and college students, ages 16 -22, across the Miami Valley to the region’s ten in-demand industries through paid internships. Students will receive first-hand experience and gain the skills needed to secure employment after graduation in their industry of choice, or multiple industries of choice, while being paid. In addition, they will receive guidance and coaching on in-demand career pathways, advocating for themselves, soft-skill employability development training, managing their finances, and post-graduation employment strategies. The Bridging Abilities program will eliminate barriers to securing livable wage employment by developing disabled students with the requisite technical and soft skills, while providing a support system for the students and caregivers.
The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is currently 7.6% as compared to people without a disability at 3.5% which is twice as high. In 2022, about 21.3 percent of people with a disability in the U.S. were employed versus 65.4 percent of non-disabled people. To close this disparity in employment gap, we propose to address this by engaging disabled students through experiential learning in High School and College to equip them with the skills they need to secure employment and eliminate barriers to employment. The research on engaging students in local industries and encouraging their interests has a very clear and positive impact on both the student and industry partner. The importance of experiential work in the development of young people is critical especially since disabled students often require additional time to develop skills. In addition, practical job-related experiences play a central role in the formation of young people’s identity and self-esteem. Most importantly, internships provide an opportunity for a student to understand company culture, as well as form habits, practices, and ways of thinking and behaving that simply cannot be learned in an “unreal” setting. It is our duty as business leaders to provide our students the practical experiences of working in our in-demand industries, so they will be better informed when choosing a career. The research is also clear that the most successful cities across the county in implementing internship programs have utilized a third-party non-profit, like SOCHE. This way a region can have a one-stop shop to work with industry to build jobs, to educate parents, to prepare students and to match them with their industry of interest.
The Miami Valley has identified ten in-demand industries (Manufacturing, Aerospace and Aviation, Automotive, Healthcare, Information Technology, Energy and Chemicals, Financial Services, Food and Agribusiness, Logistics & Transportation, and Military and Federal). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Dayton Region Workforce Portal, almost all these industries show significant projected growth in jobs through 2031. The Miami Valley must begin engaging students as early as possible to ensure they understand the needs of their community. For the Bridging Abilities work, SOCHE will first concentrate on one in-demand industry because of the ease of multiple different levels of work for people with disabilities - Manufacturing.

The State of Ohio directed all children across the State to receive career education. Specifically, the Career Connections Framework mandates that children receive Career Awareness (grades K-5), Career Exploration (grades 6-8), and Career Planning (grades 9-12). Every school in the State has determined their own pathway to complete this mandatory requirement. A very small proportion (approximately 1%) of juniors and seniors across the State are receiving Career Planning education that includes a realistic experiential learning experience in their industry of choice. Although, multiple research studies point to career planning being incomplete without an experiential learning engagement. Bridging Abilities will address this issue, by giving hundreds of disabled high school and college students a paid experiential learning opportunity while provide our employers with alternative workforce solution.
In addition, the State of Ohio mandate that requires all schools engage with their community through a Business Advisory Committee (BAC) has lead to the discover of the need to secure alternative workforce development solutions. SOCHE is proud to chair our largest county (Montgomery) BAC that service all their districts as well as Warren County districts. SOCHE also is an active BAC member for Greene, Clark, Champaign, and Hamilton counties. SOCHE has successfully delivered a world-class experiential learning experience to students in their counties. In fact, in summer 2023, SOCHE provided nearly 300 non-disabled high school and college students experiential learning opportunities to explore career pathways and to help meet the workforce needs of in-demand industry employers. Now, SOCHE wants to expand services to include students with disabilities. SOCHE will collaborate with our schools and in-demand manufacturing industry partners to ensure students get the best out of their experiential learning. The Bridging Abilities program will coach and mentor the students through an individual development plan that will ensure the students have gained appropriate employability skills from their experience. Most importantly, the internships will provide an opportunity for a student to understand company culture, as well as form habits, practices, and ways of thinking and behaving that simply cannot be learned in an “unreal” setting. In Fall 2022, SOCHE tested the concept with a few students. The program was so successful and the need is so great that SOCHE grew to service nearly 60 disabled students in Fall 2023.
SOCHE partners will include The Abilities Connection, Dayton Regional Manufacturers Association, and University of Dayton’s FastLane to ensure stupendous success. As a part of this program, our High School students (and their families) will learn critical job preparation skills and their benefits, as well as technical and soft skills that will be critical in their transition to full-time work. After developing a partnership with a High School, students will be assessed on their capabilities and capacity and will then be trained on light manufacturing tasks, coached on successful completion of tasks, mentored on soft skills required for maintaining a job, educated on their benefits, mentored on skills to get promoted or find new positions, and educated on critical money management skills. Arguably, one of the best parts of our initiative is that the work-based learning experience occurs right in the student’s classroom, where they are most comfortable. Students will be mentored throughout their internship with an intentional focus on job and soft skills. Our goal is to assist in the transition of these students from High School to full time work in manufacturing companies after their internship.
In addition, The Bridging Abilities program will work to match college students with disabilities with work-based learning opportunities across the region by working with local businesses to find the right match in all of our region’s in-demand industries. We will work closely with our industry specific trade association partners like Technology First, Dayton Regional Manufacturers Association, Dayton Area Logistics Association and Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association to build internships across many different industry sectors. As the U.S. faces workforce shortages in future, industry can no longer rely on traditional workforce development and recruitment strategies to remain competitive.
The research indicates that a strong experiential learning model has multiple attributes that includes parent, employer and school modules. These modules all complement each other to provide resources to everyone surrounding the student for the best student experience. Bridging Abilities will utilize a proven online tool that has been successfully utilized across the Miami Valley for over 40 years - the SOCHEIntern model.
SOCHE has studied the best internship models in the country. Specifically, we’ve modeled our internship programs after the Boston and San Antonio models who both have thousands of students taking part in experiential learning opportunities every year, either during the school year or in the summer. These world-class internship models will be operationalized through the SOCHEIntern online platform.
SOCHE will connect interns with pathways that will guide them to work opportunities after graduation, or to certification or higher education opportunities. The higher education opportunities will lead to more internships that will help students further discern their occupational choices while assisting employers with their workforce needs.
SOCHE is a non-profit organization headquartered in Dayton, Ohio that is a consortium of more than 22 colleges and universities. SOCHE’s mission is to be the leader for higher collaboration, working with K-12 and colleges and universities to transform their communities and economies through education and employment. SOCHE’s vision reflects the mission of higher education to create an educated, employed, and engaged citizenry.
Through four decades of partnership, SOCHE has accumulated vast experience and established collaborative relationships to provide interns in support of the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) and the Air Force Research Laboratory Materials and Manufacturing Directorate (AFRL/RX). These longstanding relationships speak to the quality of service provided by SOCHE and the success of thousands of student researchers who have been employed by SOCHE over the years.
In 2012, recognizing the strength of the organization’s recruiting and management functions as well as the need to build connections between more area college students and potential employers, SOCHE launched its first internship program outside of WPAFB. The program was created to provide the same internship management services to area businesses and defense contractors in support of their workforce needs. This program also allowed SOCHE to begin working with students from all majors including business administration, accounting, finance, supply chain management, logistics, human resources, and communications, in comparison to existing relationships on WPAFB that focus solely on STEM-student researchers. Since its inception, the program has provided local internship opportunities to hundreds of students representing every major academic program.
In 2017, SOCHE merged with long-time partner DAGSI (Defense Associated Graduate Student Innovators). DAGSI has been contributing to Air Force research priorities since the early 1990s, funding graduate students and their faculty advisors across Ohio. DAGSI works very closely with the Air Force Research Laboratory to identify graduate level projects for State and AFRL funding. Because of the DAGSI programming, over 70% of funded students remain in Ohio to continue their careers.
SOCHE’s legacy was built over the last 55 years through working collaboratively across educational institutions and connecting students with work-based learning to meet the workforce demands of our employers. We have a history of matching students to the best opportunity for them to develop essential skills as well as helping companies build their next generation of workforce. We know how to work directly with schools, how to attract and recruit students, as well as place them in positions in a multitude of industries. We have been placing High School, Undergraduate and Graduate students in a wide range of work-based learning opportunities throughout our company history. We started our work with the Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Air Force Institute of Technology and have expanded our work into regional businesses, both large and small. We also have regional governmental agencies who employ our students. Our students have the privilege of working in many in-demand occupational areas like Information Technology, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Aerospace, and Supply Chain. We are experts in matching students to the right employer as well as working with employers on job descriptions to best meet student capabilities.
Simply stated, SOCHE has the proven experience and the online infrastructure to work with employers to create meaningful experiential learning opportunities for high school and college students that will expose them to in-demand careers across the region. This PDAC funding will kickstart Bridging Abilities for the first two years by providing 50% of the funding for every intern. After the first two years, each employer will sponsor students out of their annual operating budget. This project is ready for immediate funding. The online infrastructure is ready to go, schools and students are waiting in line and employers are primed.
As a result of this program, disabled students across our region will have employment barriers lifted and will be prepared to fill the many jobs that will be created through the growth of our economy. In addition, many companies across the region will benefit by hiring our students after they have completed their experiential learning opportunities. By hiring the students they have already trained, they will reduce the amount of time and money required to get their newest employees prepared and ready to work.
Our region simply cannot rely on just classroom exposure to our in-demand careers. We have to give our students meaningful experiences in our in-demand industries to show them what the industries entail to guarantee their success.