Blog

Royal College Manchester first launched its supported internship pilot three years ago in response to a worrying national trend that sees many young disabled people unable to find work. By teaching necessary work and communication skills in real-world settings, staff felt that our students would be better placed to transition their skills into future workplaces.

Targeted modules on topics like Health & Safety, Food Hygiene, First Aid and Travel Training give students skills that will apply in future workplaces as well as their daily lives - learning how to ride the bus, for example, will help young people as they travel from their homes to workplaces, leisure centres, days out or visits to their family, while focusing on functional communication skills will also create opportunities to widen their social circle.

Our interns split their time between work placements in local businesses and some time at the college, with an emphasis on real-world work environments. Some students regularly volunteer packing food parcels at our local foodbank, others enjoyed spending their time feeding animals at a local farm - and one young woman with a passion for using computers was offered work experience doing data entry in the billing office of a local company.

Former interns have gone on to receive many offers of paid work including Ryan, a passionate City fan who was offered a position as a janitor at the Etihad stadium, and Robyn who sells and delivers lunch in a local office. One student this year has been offered a position at Laltex after their staff decided to treat his work experience as a working interview - he was able to work preparing items to be printed at the pace they needed, and impressed them so much that they decided to offer him parttime work!