Corporate Mentoring Experience in Employment of Teenagers with Disabilities

<p>This article describes the experience of implementing the corporate mentoring program of the Guardians of Childhood Foundation during training and work internships of adolescents and young adults with disabilities. Corporate mentoring is presented as a universal model of career guidance for adolescents in the context of working relationships in existing companies, where there is an intensive transfer of experience and knowledge, the formation of skills, competencies, metacompetences and values of work activity, and the formation of work motivation. The study involved 82 adolescents aged 14 to 18 years (26 hard of hearing and deaf, 56 with mental disabilities), who were temporarily employed in 34 companies in Moscow and the Rostov Region. As a result of participating in the program, adolescents with disabilities significantly expanded their understanding of available professions, mastered the basics of the profession, learning to work in a team, gained practical work experience during internships under the guidance of mentors — company employees, and realized the prospects of their work in the future.</p>