Classroom in a kitchen: How a Dallas cafe connects people with disabilities to hands-on job training

From KERA News:

The ice machine has a slight buzz, but it’s hard to hear it over the sound of James Dunn digging in with his bright blue scoop. The uniform cubes hit the bottom of a plastic bin – joining the hectic chorus of the kitchen.

It’s early March, and Dunn is in his first week as an intern at the Metrocare Cares Café – a restaurant on the behavioral health provider’s new campus in Southern Dallas. He’s helping the executive chef, Holly Veracruz, prep for a catering order.

“Are you ready, James?” asked Veracruz after loading carts with a tres leches cake and the building blocks of a taco bar.

“Yes, I’m ready,” Dunn said. “You?”

“I’m always ready,” Veracruz replied.

The two share a laugh while they wait for the elevator.

The Metrocare Cares Café is a classic professional kitchen, with industrial appliances and towering walls of stainless steel. Behind a dividing wall, the kitchen opens into a serving area, with a counter where customers can pick from made-to-order foods or the daily special. Guests have the option to sit in the dining area, which is quiet compared to the chaos of the kitchen, and has a view of the Dallas skyline.

The café is home to a program that’s new to Dallas County’s largest behavioral and mental health provider.

The kitchen is run by interns, like Dunn, completing a job skills training program focused on food service. The program is designed to help people with intellectual and developmental disabilities gain experience and skills for employment.

Metrocare, the county’s safety net behavioral health provider, is trying to encourage more independence for its interns by addressing some of the barriers to employment that people with disabilities can face.

“One day, when I be on my own, I can do this,” Dunn said, “what they taught me.”

Dunn, who is 33 years old, is joined by seven other interns helping run the kitchen in half-day shifts.

“We train for life skills, job skills, so they can take them out and be successful in the community,” Veracruz said. “We want to give our individuals a chance and a better job experience that they’re not getting anywhere else.”

The interns learn the ins-and-outs of food service – including front- and back-of-house skills like cooking, cleaning and customer service.

The interns are all people with different intellectual and developmental disabilities who are over the age of 18. Program participants are trained over the course of four to 12 weeks – depending on what skills they need to work on and how much support they need.

Metrocare’s job coaches place participants where they’re needed the most, which Veracruz said gives them somewhere to start. Then, the participants learn how to do things in every area of the kitchen, like the grill, the dish pit, the service counter and the cash register.

When the interns leave the program, Veracruz said they have skills and experience that make them more employable.

“It’s like having a classroom, but in a kitchen,” she said.

Carrie Parks, chief of intellectual and developmental disability provider and specialized services at Metrocare, said the program benefits the individuals, as well as the broader community.

“To me, cooking is the ultimate education,” she said. “It teaches social skills and math and following instructions and customer service…and it’s always a job that’s needed.”

The kitchen was part of the organization’s plan for the $96 million Hillside campus that opened last year. Parks was one of the main people advocating for the program.

While there are others like it in the area, Parks said some of those programs have a waitlist or don’t train participants in the skills they want. She said that can mean people are stuck waiting for work experience or training, and Metrocare’s program expands access for people with disabilities.

“We’ve always wanted to have a place to train our individuals in careers that are highly needed in the community,” Parks said. “It’s amazing, I was truly blessed that our CEO and my leadership team said ‘let’s do it and go forth with it.’ But I think it’s more important to our clients and our families because they’re getting to see their individuals grow and blossom.”

The café serves about 100 people a day – mainly Metrocare employees – and handles catering orders for different departments in the organization, like the early childhood education team’s taco bar. But, Parks said as the program grows and develops, she hopes to open it up to more people when possible.

Within the first year, Parks hopes to have at least 48 people complete the job skills training program.

So far, eight interns have finished the program – including Dunn, who graduated this month.

Veracruz said she’s seen participants grow and become more confident and comfortable in food service as they gain the experience they need. She wants people in the food service industry to consider her interns for jobs and have patience as they learn.

“These individuals are now, when they leave here, are going to be looking for jobs,” she said. “Please give them a chance. It’ll be the best investment in their company. I can promise them.”

Veracruz said getting to be a part of the program is “near and dear” to her heart. In addition to working with a lot of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, she also has a daughter with autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.

“People in the world don’t give them second look,” said Veracruz. “That’s what we want them to do because I find I’ve worked with many people that are on the spectrum and they make some of the best employees ever. I get the chills thinking about it because they’re so good.”

After setting up the taco bar, Dunn returns to the Metrocare Cares Café, where he does what he said is his favorite part – serving customers.

The serving area is much quieter than the kitchen. Dunn’s spoon scrapes across the bottom of the metal pan and he serves vegetables, beans and breaded tilapia.

The smooth drawl of his voice fills the space as he talks with his coworkers and some of the customers.

“I used to watch my aunties and my cousins [while] they’re cooking,” Dunn said. “I wanted to do it too because I always help out with my family…, so this is what I want to do.”

But, Dunn isn’t just inspired by memories of his family. He sees the skills he’s learning at the Metrocare Cares Café as a way to reach the other things he wants out of his life – like having a family of his own.

“I’m going to do this with my kids,” Dunn said. “One day when they get on their own, they can be in my shoes.”

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