FOREST HILLS, Mich. — Three days a week, The Coffee Nest, a coffee shop inside Forest Hills Eastern High School, is giving six students with autism the opportunity to gain real-world job skills while serving up drinks.
The students, who range from ninth through twelfth grade, take orders, make drinks, handle money and interact with customers. The shop is open Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with peers and three adults also providing support.
Watch the video report below:
More than a cup of coffee
For student and barista Jocelyn Tierney, her favorite drink to make is a mocha, but the experience goes beyond what is in the cup.
“This place, it just puts me in my happy place. It’s great to work with my friends and teachers and serve drinks. I really like this job,” Tierney said.
Tierney has also helped give the coffee shop its own look by designing artwork for the business.
Building skills and confidence
Autism teacher Stephanie Braun said the idea grew from a coffee shop at the transition center. She began brainstorming a similar business at the high school last winter as a way for students to develop prerequisite skills. The program later received a grant in the spring and began working with Rowster Coffee to get the shop up and running.
Braun said students spent the first month of school learning through presentations, videos and visual, hands-on instruction. She also developed step-by-step task guides and used repeated practice to help students progress from completing tasks with assistance to doing them independently.
“They’re getting practical, like, job skills. We’re also learning multi-step directions, they're learning how to handle money, the social skills, how to interact with other people, but also like following directions, following recipes,” Braun said.
Braun said she has seen the experience help build students' confidence.
A local partnership
Rowster Coffee's involvement began after Braun reached out about whether the local coffee business would participate in the program. The company agreed and offered 500 pounds of coffee to support the shop. Owner Doug Maas and Rowster Coffee President Nate Murphy said that the opportunity allows students to learn hospitality skills while also being part of the coffee industry.
“Watching them create the coffee, I think this is going to do something for them later in life, which would allow them to become more valued in the community and hopefully become maybe a barista for one of our companies,” Maas and Murphy said.
Rowster Coffee representatives said they expect the 500 pounds of coffee to last the program a long time and are willing to continue the partnership beyond that initial contribution.
Taking the skills beyond high school
For some students, the experience could continue after high school through the transition center's coffee shop. Braun said some of her students are already working in the community and may also take the skills they are developing in the school coffee shop into those jobs.
“So many of our students will either transition from here into the transition center, where they also have a place like this, a coffee shop, where they’ll continue those skills, or be able to go into the community and get a similar job,” Braun said.
Right now, the coffee shop serves only staff, but Braun hopes to open it to students soon. The shop currently involves one of the school's three autism classrooms, with plans to eventually expand to the other two after the current students become confident in their roles.
And Tierney had one final message for her family.
“Mom, Dad, if you’re watching this, I just want you to know I love you,” she said.
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