RACINE COUNTY Since July 2011, Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Wisconsin and Wheaton Franciscan Healthcare now Ascension have teamed up to train nearly 1,500 people in the health care and customer service industries.

Of that number, which includes people from Racine County, 426 have been permanently placed within Wheaton/Ascension.

The program that facilitates this opportunity for placement is dubbed Project Prism.

Applicants work through Goodwills TalentBridge program to get paid training by Ascension in either medical group operations or patient access/business office in order to create great patient advocates, according to Suzanne Maldonado, managing director of professional services for TalentBridge.

Prism was born of a desire for better customer service for Ascension customers. Trainees need not have an extensive work history, but soft skills and a strong sense of empathy, emotional intelligence, critical thinking and organization are preferred, if not required, Maldonado said.

The biggest change from a hiring perspective is: In health care there was a big focus on people who worked in health care before, Maldonado said.

By shifting the narrow focus of prior experience to a larger swath of workers who have good soft skills, it has fostered a more fluid workforce, she said.

One such example is Mirabel Berinyuy Kongnyuy, a woman originally from Cameroon who now lives in Greenfield. Growing up, she said, she knew the job market in her home country was sparse at best.

Kongnyuy said she observed people who went through years and years of school but did not get hired for any work, so she took a gamble and came to the United States last February. She started in Project Prism in August and was hired by Ascension as a customer service representative.

There was somewhat of a language barrier at first though she and most people she knew in Cameroon are bilingual but Kongnyuy said she quickly picked everything up.

I thought people might not accept my culture, Kongnyuy said. (My classmates) made me feel at home.

Customer service representatives are started at $13 to $14 an hour, Maldonado said. This allowed Kongnyuy to help out her family back home.

When you can train people and make them comfortable in jobs, thats when they succeed, said Cheryl Lightholder, manager of communications for Goodwill.

The program itself lasts about 11 weeks, starting with three full days of training with Goodwill, then 10 to 11 weeks with Ascension.

Though Ascenions takeover of Wheaton could have easily thrown a wrench into Project Prism, the transition was smooth, and Prism will continue as it has been for the past six years until further notice, Maldonado said.

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Ascension, Goodwill program leads to job placements - Journal Times