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Updates: Colleges & Business Units | Commercial Outlets and Nurseries
Advice for: Students, Parents and Carers | College Applicants | Apprentices
Updates: Colleges & Business Units | Commercial Outlets and Nurseries
Advice for: Students, Parents and Carers | College Applicants | Apprentices
A Supported Internship is a full-time course which aims to teach you about the skills you need to get a sustainable paid job, as well as improve your maths and English. You must be between the ages of 16 and 24 and have a valid EHCP to access the course. We support interns with a wide range of needs and disabilities. The course runs in line with the academic year, September to July.
Currently in the UK less than 6% of people with a learning disability are in paid work. However, many young people with an EHCP are motivated to work, they just need extra help to achieve this goal. The Supported Internship is here to support your career ambitions.
How does it work?
Rather than learning about work in a classroom environment, interms will learn about work by being in work! We will arrange a work placement which is in line with their career goals, skills and interests, and it will be local to where they live, subject to availability.
Each Supported Intern is allocated a Job Coach. The Job Coach guides the intern in their work placement with whatever support is required, for example learning a new bus route, breaking down
tasks, learning a new skill or piece of equipment, working confidently with colleagues or customers, and completing work to the required standard. They will also ensure your safety in work at all times.
The amount of hours an intern will work completely depends on the business need of the company as well as the capability of the intern. Generally Supported Interns start working for a few hours a week and this will increase as they gain skills and confidence in their role. Job Coach support also gradually decreases as an intern is able to work more independently.
Additionally, Supported Interns attend college one day a week to gain qualifications in maths and English up to level 2. If you already have a Level 2 or GCSE grade 4 or higher in either subject you will still need to attend these lessons in order to maintain your skills. We also aim to develop your independence with using maths and English and therefore class sizes are small, but do not have additional learning support.
Towards the end of the course we will support you with progressing into paid employment, as this is the next step from the Supported Internship.
If you are interested in the Bright Futures Supported Internship, please email us on supportedinternships@ekcgroup.ac.uk
EKC Group run hundreds of courses across East Kent. Find the course that is right for you.
Bright Futures is a Beacon award-winning Supported Internship course that is run in partnership with the East Kent Hospitals University Foundations Trust at two of our local NHS hospitals.