Thank you, Barbara over program assistant of the student access and accommodation services for accepting this invitation to talk about the halo program. Can you tell us about what this program is about?
Well, thank you for having me. halos is an acronym that stands for Heartland Academy for learning opportunities is a program that is unique to many schools and Illinois and across the nation. It is a higher education experience for students ages 18 through 28 with intellectual and or developmental disabilities and other learning challenges. About 12 years ago, we had a group of parents that worked with Anita Moore, who was our former Director of Disability Support Services, and they had many discussions about the fact that their students could not succeed in regular college classes. And after studying these and meeting with the community members, Anita and Dr. Ellen save who was our vice president and instruction at that time, started touring other colleges programs both inside and outside of Illinois and came back to the table and developed the halo program. So exactly 10 years ago is when our first class at that time of 12 students started at Heartland Community College
in 2009. Halo program was one of the only three in the state of Illinois joining Amherst College in the Chicago suburbs and Lewis and Clark College and Godfrey today, Halo students come to Heartland from all directions, including Clinton, Peoria, and Pontiac. So what can you tell us about this journey? And how would you describe it?
You're correct in saying that when we originally started, we were one of three colleges in Illinois. Elmhurst of course, is up north Lewis and Clark is way south, so we seemed to be the central location. This attracted quite a few students from both in and outside of McLean County. Like I said, before we've reached from South like Clinton, we've reached out west Peoria and north up to Pontiac the Odell area we seem to bring in students from all of those areas,
students do pursue a variety of coursework, including cooking money management skills, reading, technology, math, social development, health and awareness, independent living, a lot of things right. outside of academics, Halo students develop the soft skills necessary for successful transition to adulthood. And upon completion of the program, a non degree credential is awarded. So how did you end up with this rich variety of courses? And how do you think this variety contributes to the student's transition to adulthood?
Good question, we feel that it's necessary to keep skills sharp. So we offered a wide variety of academic coursework making sure that we had the reading the math, technology and community types of skills to our students, we look at our program as being the next level of independence, we want to make sure that like I said that those skills are academic stay sharp, and add to that some of the living skills and then add to that the soft skills that are necessary for employment such as responsibility, advocating your needs. Those are the important things that set our students higher or above some of the other people that are out looking for jobs. We practice these skills in every single class, we build them into our curriculum.
There's a peer mentoring program where students from Heartland and Illinois State University study education, special education, social work, and in these programs, they get to spend a one on one time with a halo student, take them to classes, assist them with homework and encourage them. Can you tell us more about how this cooperation with ISU helped with reaching new program goals
about five or six years ago, a grant was written to develop a peer mentor program for Heartland the peer mentor program itself was originally offered as an independent study for both heartland and ISU students through this independent study. Their role was to be a peer mentor embedded in that grant the education the training, giving students the skills that they would need to work with any individuals with disabilities. Today it is grown we offer a course at ISU we offer one at Heartland under the independent study curriculum, other areas special education I work with the special education department I issue social work department and I issue inclusive recreation department and ISU because they're always looking for opportunities to give their college students additional contact and experience and working with individuals with disabilities. In particular, the social work department has an internship which they require students to work 40 hours a semester so they team with us. We get a lot of very quality people from both iOS Shu and Heartland that wanted to go into classes with our students to become pure mentors where they can model that behavior, be in a classroom, work with the instructor work with the other students in the classroom, the academic components of the class so that it's a meaningful experience for them. In addition to that, there could be some studying outside of class, it could be assistance with projects, group work. And there there is a cheerleader. And there there is a model for everyone in the class, I'm very fortunate to have that link. It's been a great opportunity, a real win win situation.
Students also have an opportunity to participate in college courses outside of their certificate. And when they show initiative and high performance, what are some criteria which allow the students to take part in these classes? And can you think of a particular instance for this,
I think of Halo is such a two sided program. The first side we have our students that want to come through the program and take all of the Halo coursework and graduate at Heartland graduation with a halo certificate. We have quite a few students that do that. We have other students that wants to take Halo classes because they offer pieces that perhaps they've missed over their education students that need a social development class students that need community awareness, those that need that extra bridge to actual college life. So we have students that do that, just like any other students, students come to college for different reasons. And some particular instances where I can think of is that we've had a student that took all of her coursework, and then began taking some college coursework into her second or third semester, she was able to take both coursework, take the college coursework for credit and balance it with a halo support, she graduated with an associate's degree, we have another student that I can take that we found a particular link with technology, who has taken all of the Halo Wars we're in then is now taking some additional coursework in the area of technology and can gain a certificate and then I can think of a third student had a particular interest in history is here still today, keeping his knowledge fresh, keeping his interest in history and auditing the classes just to be a better person.
These are all inspiring stories. Indeed, I also know that Halo is federally designated as a Post Secondary Transition Program. And as a supportive Herot group, can you tell us more about sullo
did receive its designation from the federal government. The application was made about six years ago, seven years ago, and we are a comprehensive transition post secondary program, we feel that this is a real exclusive type of an honor. So we're really happy to have that designation. As far as the parent group goes, we do have very, very supportive parents. When a student comes in to interview with us, we make sure that a parent comes with them because we want our goals to match the goals of the family and the student. In that way. We're working together what is the portable purpose, a job experience for our students about a year and a half ago were given this idea we even seeing this around our area. In fact, we had an instructor at that time that was in education who met with me and we decided that this sounded like a good idea. The college embraced it we went ahead and purchase the heart so we move around campus we have a curate, we've developed over the years we started offering just coffee at first with maybe some tea bags, flavored coffee flavored creamers and we are in operation three days a week on campus and like us on Facebook at portable works at heart on and you'll find out where we are and where we're located and what our hours are every week. Each of the students need to get their health department's certification. So they are a food handler. So that's really good. That's a skill that they can go on and maybe get a job for outside of the community. It's giving them face to face communication skills, money management skills. So we found out that a lot of students on campus don't bring money but they have heart so we borrow the card reader from the campus. So now our students have making change skills with real money. We have card reader skills, we know how to make coffee we work with customers, so it's just kind of a fun thing and it's all around beneficial.
Halo also links with Bloomington Normal based agencies like Mark fors Ridgeway to connect students with job shadowing, job coaching and career opportunities. How does this contribute to the development of the students? What is an example of a success story you can share with us regarding gainful employment for Halo students?
Overall our goal is to have our students gainfully employed following graduation at one time Halo had a career component to its curriculum and over the yours we've cut back on the programming, but we found that we do have agencies, these are the programs in the community that do the job training, the coaching, they're shadowing areas that we don't have the manpower for right now. So we like to open that door. We feel like we get to know our students really well so that we can help to share ideas about students strengths and weaknesses when we see these and we really encourage students as they're getting ready to graduate to reach out to one of these areas. We have students working right now all over, thanks to them, thanks to maybe some of the job shadowing and opportunities that they had here while they were at Heartland to they are all over the community right now. Some are working full time, some are working part time. If there's
something else you'd like to mention that we haven't covered.
I'd like to really think Artland going back 1211 10 years ago or making this move, it was certainly a move that was unheard of at that time. So it was like I said, I need a more Doctor safe the parent group we're really looking at into the future of something that would fit into something that was necessary in our times. I know that there's a lot of other programs popping up and I was glad that we were in the forefront and being that that 10 year anniversary we are celebrating here. Thank you so much. Thank you
