Former supported interns star in East Sussex video campaign

Following the receipt of funding aimed at increasing awareness of Supported Employment Pathways, the East Sussex Supported Employment Forum is actively participating in a nationwide effort to double the number of supported internships in England to 4,500 annually by March 2025.

The East Sussex campaign will be launched in the form of videos that highlight employment pathways to both young people and their parents or carers, as well as promoting them to potential employers.

To create these informative videos, James Bloomfield visited came and filmed our recent and past interns at their workplaces alongside interviewing their employers.

James filmed Jasmine (a past supported intern) and Karen from our catering and hospitality department and Ryan (recently finished supported intern) and Doug who run the butchery unit at Middle Farm.

Jasmine has been in her role for 4 years and has worked her way up from an intern to part-time employment and is now in full-time employment and absolutely loving it. Jasmine is an integral part of the team and considers her colleagues to be family.

Ryan started his current role in June 2023 after he completed an internship placement with Doug in November 2022 and clearly made a great impression! Ryan is now not only employed full-time within the butchers, but has enrolled onto our butchery apprenticeship programme here at Plumpton College to continue developing his skills with the aim to progress within his career, stating that “I want to be as good as Doug.” Ryan has made huge progress and is thriving in his role, travelling to and from work independently and running the shop on his own on a Sunday. In Doug’s video he named Ryan as his “right hand man” highlighting one of the many benefits to employers that this programme offers.

Rachel Roberts, our Supported Internships Coordinator, was part of the video project and says it was a very emotional and exciting day. For anyone wishing to learn more about supported internships, take a look at our webpage here. 

Categories: Foundation Learning, Inclusive Learning and Development