An exciting scheme to help young people with disabilities into employment and independence has now launched across the Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust’s Eastern services.

Project SEARCH, which is a collaboration between the Royal Devon, Petroc, and Seetec Pluss employment agency, has been running at North Devon District Hospital for nine years and has helped 87% of its graduates into employment.

The highly successful internship program, which launched across our Eastern services yesterday, 1 November 2022, has dedicated time where interns will receive training and support before and after each day’s work placements.

The interns will also receive on the job support from dedicated job coaches and will complete three lots of ten-week placements, across a number of departments and services.

Our Chief Executive Officer, Suzanne Tracey, says: “Project SEARCH has been a huge success across our Northern Services over the last nine years, and we are really proud to now be rolling it out across our Eastern services too.

“I was delighted to meet all of our new recruits on their first day yesterday.  We wish all of our new interns luck and I look forward to keeping up to date with how they progress their careers with us.”

Gail Richards, People Development Lead at the Royal Devon said “We are really excited to extend this highly successful program to our Eastern services, offering incredible job opportunities to young people with an Educational Health and Care Plan.”

Mark Beades, Faculty Manager for Level 1 provision for Petroc College, said “This is an amazing opportunity for young people with a learning disability or autism from Exeter who really want to gain paid employment. The level of support and guidance can be tailored to the needs of the individual due to the design of the program and the onsite training room.”

For more information, please click here.

Applications open for Project Search:

Exeter

Barnstaple