Dora Navas, who works at a group home in North Providence, helps resident Brian Moran get a cup for an iced coffee at a local convenience store.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

Re-Focus Inc. is a nonprofit agency that provides services for developmentally disabled adults, operating 14 group homes throughout Rhode Island. It wanted people who could work in their homes.

The Genesis Center provides language training and workforce development for immigrants, refugees, and low-income families. It wanted to provide jobs for its clients.

Now adult students from Genesis classes designed to prepare students for entry-level jobs in the health-care field are being placed as interns in Re-Focus group homes. If the interns work out, they get hired. Since March, Re-Focus has hired 15 students from Genesis, and a new crop of interns will be starting at Re-Focus homes this week.

“I never dreamed it could work out this well,” said Patricia Clarkin, director of workforce development at Genesis. “Maybe it was just serendipitous that they had the need, and we had the people … it all came together at the right time for everybody. The internships allow the [group home] managers to really get to know the people we send — and they usually get hired.”

Dora Navas, 38, of Providence, works in a group home in North Providence, placed there after she took English classes and health-care education at Genesis. Before coming to Genesis, she said, she worked for a jewelry company, but when the company went out of business she was without work for more than two years. “I was very happy to get hired here,” she said.

The North Providence home has four residents; Navas’ duties include food shopping, cooking, doing laundry, and getting the clients dressed and driving them to workshops or appointments. Communication, she said, is the most important thing. Bobby Sorrentino, manager of the home, said resident Brian Moran has taken a shine to Navas — and Moran can be picky about whom he likes.

“She has a thirst for wanting to know,” Sorrentino said. “She’s still insecure about her [English] writing and speaking. But she’s getting more comfortable with it.”

Navas said she’s been working at the North Providence home since June 11. “Dora cried when she was hired, and that made me cry, too.” said Christine Grimaldi Field, human resources manager for Re-Focus. “I didn’t realize how important this was to her. A lot of these people have been looking for jobs for a long time.”

Field and Sandra Olivo-Peterson, job developer for Genesis, are the two people most directly responsible for the partnership between Re-Focus and Genesis. Peterson said she was discussing possible job partnerships with Clarkin, who mentioned that Genesis had previously considered working with Re-Focus, but that the relationship had never gotten off the ground. So Peterson got in touch with Field.

“Sandra called me earlier this year,” Field said. “Right away our two goals matched. It’s all about bettering people’s lives on her end and on our end.”

Field said Re-Focus had tried establishing an intern program using area colleges, but had trouble organizing it though the colleges.

“The interns we get from Genesis really want to work,” said house manager Sorrentino. “They’re friendly people. They get to know the guys. … the main challenge we have is the language barrier.”

Not all the students in the Genesis health-care education classes, which last 12 weeks, go on to intern at Re-Focus. Some become involved with a program called Stepping Up, and are placed at Women & Infants Hospital or Rhode Island Hospital. (Everyone in the Genesis health-care education class must have a high school diploma or its equivalent.)

For the Re-Focus interns, Field visits the classes at Genesis to describe the work and the needs of the group home residents. She passes out Re-Focus handbooks that list the organization’s policies and procedures, and takes students to visit several of the group homes. Field said she and Olivo-Peterson try to place interns in specific homes based on their personalities.

“We wouldn’t put, say, a very shy person in a home where there are a lot of behavioral issues,” Field said.

Besides finding the people who would make good workers for Re-Focus, Field said, the internship is also useful in weeding out those who are not a good fit for the job, which saves time and trouble for both workers and house managers. “It’s not for everybody,” Field said.

The Genesis Center health-care education class is taught by Gienia Kocur. She said the class doesn’t train students for a specific job, but tries to give an overview of the available opportunities in the field. “Everyone thinks of becoming a CNA [certified nursing assistant] or a nurse, but there are a lot of other jobs people don’t always know about,” she said.

The course teaches vocabulary that might be used in health-care jobs and provides computer training so students can conduct job searches, write and post their resumés, navigate Web sites, and use e-mail — all skills that are essential in looking for jobs these days.

Class member Tadesse Tsega, 54, of Providence, was born in Ethiopia and came to the United States from Yemen. He’ll be starting an internship with Re-Focus this week. Tsega said it hasn’t been easy finding a job since he came to this country. “I go to interviews, and they say, ‘We’ll call you, we’ll call you.’ But nobody is calling me.”

Tsega said he would like to continue his education, perhaps to become a medical assistant or a nurse, but in the meantime he’s hoping to get a job with Re-Focus. “I’m interested to help people,” he said.

The internships last four weeks, although sometimes interns who do particularly well are offered jobs before their internships are officially over. Once hired, the new employees work between 20 and 30 hours a week, although many of them end up working additional hours as they become available. Pay starts at $10.61 an hour.

Saron Chao, 44, of Providence, came to the U.S. from Cambodia. She now works for Re-Focus at a group home in Cranston. For 14 years before that, she said, she had been employed at the Stanley Bostitch plant in East Greenwich, but lost her job when a machine was able to do her work more efficiently than she could.

“When I first came to the Unites States, it was easier to find work than it is now,” she said. So she went to the Genesis Center to improve her English, and then entered the health-care exploration class. She said the work is about more than money: “You can help people who can’t help themselves.”

Dorothy Wesley, 24, of Providence, was hired at a Re-Focus home on the East Side of Providence. Previous jobs have included stints as a housekeeper and working in retail, but before she came to the Genesis Center, Wesley said, she hadn’t worked for about a year.

“I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made,” she said. “I love it. I like being able to help people. It’s like having a family away from your own family.”

asmith@projo.com