Devon Partnership NHS Trust has had a supported internship programme in place for three years. However, the impact of the pandemic prevented the Trust from placing interns, as many were no longer actively engaged with their educational providers and unable to travel.
Nevertheless, by ‘thinking outside the box’ the Trust’s Corporate Affairs Team were able to support an intern by enabling the placement to happen fully remotely, with the continued support of a job coach, who also worked remotely.
Working ‘online’ met the needs of both the intern, who suffers from significant anxiety, particularly around travelling and of the Trust who could not readily support an intern on a Trust clinical site.
The supported internship placement was an outstanding success. However, it became clear that internships do not have a seamless transition to further development and ultimately substantive employment.
The Trust valued the contributions of the intern and the skills she had brought to the Trust, so the Trust worked in-house to move the intern onto a supported apprenticeship and to build a supported internship to an apprenticeship pathway for future interns.
Quote from Laura Hobbs
We want to celebrate the amazing asset she is in our Trust. We are extremely proud of our intern, the skills and capabilities she has demonstrated to us, the patience she has exhibited and most significantly, her courage.
But most of all we want to thank her for just how much she has taught all the members of her team – about care, compassion, inclusivity, tenacity and breaking down barriers.
We owe so much to her for opening our eyes, individually and collectively, to a wider world of possibilities.
We are now ambassadors to deliver change and to see our workforce evolve in the coming years with confidence, valued and developed staff working throughout our services that have come through a supported internship journey.
Laura Hobbs