UK Health Care has partnered with Fayette County Public Schools and the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to create Project Search and internship program for students with developmental disabilities.

Rick Rickett has a daughter in the program, ELA, who was one of seven students.

The program runs nine months parallel to the school year.

You feel like they're always going to need a certain level of care and they aren't ever going to be you sometimes thinking they're never going to be normal like the other kids and do what they are going to do.

And then when things like this come along, you you can't help but jump on the opportunity.

So often I think we limit ourselves when we think about diversity only as a racial issue or a black and white issue.

It's so much bigger, it's so much broader.

And I believe that this program is an illustration of the vastness of diversity, equity and inclusion.

And it's really about making sure that we have a table big enough to have viewpoint diversity and to have people from all walks of life, including people with differing different abilities.

So this is very important and a very, very important step, not just to demonstrate the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion, but also to include people that I believe oftentimes are overlooked.

Ella has a rare genetic condition.

It's led to some developmental disability for her, and they had come to me as a parent and said, We think that was a really great fit for this new program that we're doing at UK health care.

And in terms of vocational rehab.

Ryan and his team has been able to provide us with skilled coaches and these individuals are very instrumental in helping the students and meeting them where they are, but also making them feel very comfortable in the respective areas that they're doing their internships here in the hospital.

All right.

I believe that these skills that the students will walk away with would really equip them to go anywhere.

And it doesn't even have to be in health care because it's a very broad range of skill sets that they're being exposed to that can be applicable to any industry.

Thing that I would like for people to know about this program is that truly we believe that it is a pathway to unlimited possibilities and we believe that as a society so often we get in a rut of deciding or determining people's worth based on what they cannot do, as opposed to looking at what they can do.

And we believe that these students all have promise, they have purpose, and this is really a pathway to help them identify that purpose in life and have that that mean.

Take any opportunity, the opportunity that you can for your child and they can do more than you probably think they can.

Even I can say that as a parent, sometimes we have our reservations about what our kids can do, but when somebody else comes up to you and says Your child can do this, do it, trust them.

Because these children, just like all other children, are different outside of your home and they have a lot of other abilities that maybe you don't know about.

Just different, no telling.