If you are thinking about hosting a placement, firstly contact your local college or training provider. They will work with you to understand the role you have available and to ensure the best job match between the potential intern, the role and your business requirements.
Supported internships are flexible and the provider will work with your business to ensure the internship works for all concerned.
Partnership is key to a successful supported internship and your input will be invaluable prior to and during the placement
What you will need to do during the placement
The first thing you will need to do is interview (or use another method to assess suitability) the intern prior to placement.
During the placement you will need to:
- provide line management as you would with any employee
- work with the intern and job coach to ensure lines of communication are kept open and honest
- have input to the intern’s review
- share with the training or education provider or job coach any concerns you may have
If it became obvious that the young person requires a reasonable adjustment to undertake their duties, the job coach can support you with this and, indeed, if there is a cost, Access to Work government funding often be used. Very often these reasonable adjustments can also prove useful to current members of staff
What happens at the end of the placement
The aim of supported internships is to prepare young people with additional needs for employment. As the intern has been fulfilling a real business need in your organisation, you might consider whether you can take them on as a paid member of staff at the end of their internship.
This won’t always be possible: you may not be in a position to recruit, or the intern may not have met the required standards.
You can still play an important part in helping an intern achieve employment elsewhere, for example, by providing a reference, recommending the intern to other employers, or giving honest feedback to the college about the skills or behaviours (or both) that the young person still needs to develop.