“Being a supported intern at Family Fund has been an amazing experience”

Who am I? Who knows, not me! 

Jokes aside, my name is Grace, and I am 19, born and raised in York. I am autistic and receive support from Blueberry Academy, a local education provider. I’m doing a supported internship at Family Fund.

I personally love music, cats and art.

How I got here

I first joined Blueberry Academy in September 2022 when I was 16. At this point I hadn’t been in formal education for around four years. I was being taught for around four hours a week by the teacher training team and managed to get four of my GCSEs (I only took those four) including English and Maths.

The first two years at Blueberry mainly consisted of me trying to figure out who I was, gaining confidence in myself and wanting to find a job route that suited me.

Eventually we got to the point where I thought the next best step was York College, that was until I was given the opportunity to do a supported internship at Family Fund.

Why I picked Family Fund

The main initial reason for why I chose Family Fund was the opportunity for more experience. But the more I investigated Family Fund the more I connected with the idea of doing the supported internship.

I love the fact that Family Fund is all about helping families with disabled children. That is something I can deeply relate to and root for. I appreciate that not only would I be getting more experience, but I would be working for an organisation that had the same values as me.

The interview process

At first, I was extremely nervous about the idea of doing an interview. I had never done one before and had absolutely no idea what to expect. Talking in front of people that I don’t know about myself truly sounded like my type of hell.

Then Family Fund was able to accommodate this by sending me the list of questions they were going to be asking and making sure to make it as informal as possible for a job interview.

Being able to plan out what I was going to say almost completely wiped out my fears.

My supported internship experience so far 

During the interview, I wanted to make sure that I made it clear that I wanted to try as many different things as possible. I put an emphasis on wanting to work in marketing as that is the department I’ve got the least amount of experience in.

We had decided that doing the first term on the Family Fund Helpdesk would be a great start and help get me situated. Then in the second and third terms I would be working in Business Development and Communictions & Marketing.

I greatly enjoyed working on the Helpdesk. After the first couple training sessions I was able to just come in every morning and essentially crack on.

“Any questions I had or any clarifications I needed were answered and everyone was always extremely helpful and kind.”

I am currently nearly three months into working with Business Development and Communications & Marketing. It has definitely been an adjustment compared to Helpdesk. Coming in and having the task be different or in general not knowing exactly what to expect was a shock to the system. Compared to Helpdesk where I knew exactly what I was doing, it was a bit out of my comfort zone.

But it only really took me around two weeks to get into the swing of things thanks to the teams being welcoming and understanding.

So far, I have been doing a lot of different things such as research on different competitors and making a social media post for the newsletter. I’m now giving feedback on the supported internship website page and writing this blog! The variety of different things to do is great. Knowing that I’m contributing is a nice feeling.

Advice for others thinking about a supported internship

Always at least try something! I can say with absolute certainty that nobody is going to try and force you to do anything or make you continue to do something you don’t enjoy. You may think that initially you might not like something, but you truly never know if you don’t try.

“Being a supported intern at Family Fund has been an amazing experience and everyone has been supportive.”

It’s ok to feel uncomfortable with something and then sit in that un-comfortability.

You are also always free to ask questions and inquire about anything. Don’t let the fear of how you will be perceived stop you.

It has never felt like I have not had support considering I have had not only the Family Fund team but also Blueberry Academy. Working at Family Fund has been an amazing experience, and everyone has been very supportive.