Curriculum

Pathways to Employment is a 16-week employment readiness curriculum designed for adults with disabilities. Participants begin with hands-on exploration through UpSkills Trade Foundations labs — rotating through trades like construction, culinary, manufacturing, and technology — to uncover their unique strengths, interests, and learning style before building a personalized employment plan around what they discover. From there, the curriculum covers everything the modern workplace demands: professional behavior, workplace relationships, job applications, resume building, interview skills, benefits literacy, and real community job shadowing experiences.

LaunchPath is a tiered, competency-based Pre-ETS curriculum that meets students where they are — cognitively, communicatively, and experientially — and guides them toward meaningful career exploration and employment readiness. It combines classroom instruction, an interactive online platform, virtual portfolio building, and structured reflection tools to create a complete, standards-aligned system.

This curriculum gives educators, vocational training vendors, and providers everything they need to design, launch, and operate their own student or client-run enterprise — built from the ground up around Work Adjustment Training principles. Rather than prescribing a single business model, this program teaches you how to create a structured workplace learning environment tailored to your population, setting, and resources. Whether you're launching a café, a print shop, a resale store, or an assembly operation, the framework adapts to fit. The curriculum walks you through: Assessing your population and selecting the right enterprise model. Designing work stations and roles that target real vocational skills. Building a WAT-aligned evaluation and goal-tracking system. Structuring participant progression from orientation through transition. Training staff to coach, supervise, and support within an enterprise setting. Connecting enterprise experience to community employment outcomes. The result is a program that functions as a real business and a purposeful therapeutic environment — where every shift, every task, and every interaction is designed to build work readiness. Through structured Work Adjustment Training (WAT), participants progress through five stages — from orientation and basic work behaviors, through building stamina and independence, to leadership roles and career transition planning. Every task, every shift, and every interaction is an intentional step toward employment. Participants develop skills in: Attendance, punctuality, and workplace behavior Following instructions and completing quality work Communicating with supervisors and coworkers Problem-solving and emotional regulation on the job Self-advocacy and career goal-setting Progress is tracked across ten core work adjustment domains, with regular evaluations, individualized goal plans, and staff support throughout. Participants graduate with real work experience, a resume, and a clear path forward. The enterprise isn't just a business. It's where careers begin.