They Deserve a RAISE!

By Emily Raij

This past summer, RAISE, the work and social-skills training program for neuro-diverse adults offered through Shalom Orlando, celebrated its 10th anniversary. While the overall goals and many of the volunteers have remained constant, RAISE, which stands for Recognizing Abilities and Inclusion of Special Employees, has seen its impact grow considerably in Central Florida and beyond.

Rachel Slavkin, RAISE inclusion director, has witnessed that growth firsthand – and been a huge part of it. Active with RAISE since its inception, Rachel assumed her full-time role in September of 2022 and has since brought on eight partnering locations where employees work. She is also expecting to nearly double the number of RAISE employees this year from 12 to 20.

“All of these things have been a work in progress for years now, but you hit an accelerator button when you can bring in someone full-time,” says Loren London, RAISE strategy & development director, who founded the program and attributes its success to both teamwork and community support. “The community has supported RAISE from the very beginning. We’ve had Shalom Orlando behind us from day one. We are board-driven and board-supported, but without that support from the community, we cannot deliver.”

That support has allowed for RAISE’s most recent expansion into Southwest Orlando by adding job sites at South Orlando Jewish Congregation, Chocolate Kingdom, and Rosen JCC: Town Square of Orlando as well as a new partnership with Rosen Hotels & Resorts. Increasing the number of job sites lets RAISE accept more employees into the program and provides opportunities to diversify their job skills at two different businesses every week for six to nine months while working alongside a job coach for a three-hour shift at each location.

“Employees work at two different jobs because we like to build their résumés and expand their repertoire of skills,” says Rachel. “A side benefit we learned early on is that employees have to get used to different managers at a job, anyway.”

Partners Make It Possible

In addition to the new Southwest Orlando businesses, RAISE also has partnering locations at Central Florida Hillel, Congregation Ohev Shalom, The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida, JOANN Fabric and Crafts, The Roth Family Jewish Community Center, Jewish Family Services, Kinneret Council on Aging, Richard S. Adler Early Childhood Learning Center, Shalom Orlando, Jewish Academy of Orlando, I-4 Fit Longwood, and The Sharing Center.

“We would love to have more businesses say they’ll be a training site or hire graduates,” says Rachel, who adds that it’s a win-win because Shalom Orlando provides the paycheck and liability insurance while the businesses get hardworking RAISE employees.

The partnerships outside of Shalom Orlando and other Jewish organizations also help create a critical training-to-job pipeline for RAISE employees to obtain permanent employment after graduation. RAISE employees get paid for their work at the JCC fitness center or Jewish Academy’s library, for example, but those remain training and not hiring sites.

“With Chocolate Kingdom, Rosen Hotels, and JOANN, if our employees do a good job, they can be hired,” says Rachel.

Besides learning on the job, RAISE employees also attend a weekly social-skills Lunch and Learn class with a curriculum created and led by Rachel that focuses on topics like casual conversation and advocating for oneself.

“The overarching goal is, of course, to help folks launch to employment in the community,” says Rachel, who adds that RAISE also works with vocational rehabilitation and employment specialists who attend job interviews with graduates. In fact, 94 percent of RAISE graduates obtain jobs in the community, and Amazon recently committed to hiring RAISE graduates, too.

Each cohort year kicks off at a fall Meet and Greet where around 100 employees, family members, job coaches, vocational rehab specialists, and RAISE team members gather. At the event, employees receive an orientation and meet their job coaches for the first time. Those coaches work alongside employees for the entire six to nine months until graduation in May. RAISE is always looking for more job coaches, particularly in Southwest Orlando, and those interested in volunteering can visit OrlandoJewishFed.org/RAISE.

“A pillar of our program is our volunteerism,” says Loren. “It’s a huge part of our program that no one else has managed to pull off.”

Loren London and Rachel Slavkin, RAISE’s new full-time inclusion director

Road Trip!

Now, RAISE is helping other communities achieve the same success with its RAISE on the Road program, a full curriculum that organizations in other cities can use to establish their own RAISE program. Teaneck, New Jersey, will be RAISE’s first pilot site.

“COVID allowed Rachel and me the opportunity to work outside and replicate the RAISE model to bring it to other communities,” says Loren. “To me, it’s about celebrating a decade of success. It’s really meaningful that literally, at the 10-year mark, we have our first pilot site.”

This past decade has given RAISE a lot to celebrate.

“It’s recognizing that neuro-diverse individuals can be a productive part of a community,” Rachel says. “We’re not just impacting that person, we’re impacting his or her family, we’re impacting the JCC. The café in our lobby is completely run by a RAISE employee so JCC parents can see them. Kids there can see that people are different and that differences are OK and to be celebrated. We’re building a more inclusive community.”

This story was originally published in print in Fall 2023.