What is a trainee placement?
At Brandon, we believe that everyone deserves the opportunity to gain meaningful experience of a working environment, either through supported employment or a trainee placement.
Our trainee placements are designed to support autistic people and individuals with a learning disability to develop workplace skills, build confidence, and explore career interests in a supportive environment.
In our social enterprises, we offer trainee placements in our cafés, farms, potteries and at Brandon Packaging, our medical kits packaging service. Supported employees pack NHS organ transplant retrieval kits and trainees pack first aid kits.
Placements are tailored to the individual’s goals, interests, and support needs, and they are supported by trained staff to take on real tasks and responsibilities suited to their abilities.
The amazing team of project leaders and support staff in our enterprises are experienced in working with people of all abilities, encouraging them to flourish in a working environment.
How placements are funded
Our placements are more than just work experience – they are stepping stones toward greater independence, personal growth, and, in some cases, paid supported employment within Brandon or general employment in the wider world.
Placements are typically funded in one of two ways:
- Privately, through family contributions or other personal means
- Publicly, via a referral from a social worker who can access funding from the local authority
Brandon Packaging trainee project
At Brandon Packaging, trainees fill orders for first aid kits and help keep organisations on top of replenishment items.
Based at the Vassall Centre in Bristol, this trainee-led project develops skills through practical work such as counting, packaging, labelling, quality control, computer training and collaborating as a team.
Project leader, Alex, says: ‘Working with trainees is a brilliant part of the job. We really get to know them as people and we create personal goals for them to work towards. These can start very small, it might just be labelling 10 pots or staying focused for a whole morning, but it means that we can create lots of moments to celebrate them and congratulate them on their development.
Then the scope of their goals can grow, and we start to set bigger challenges for them, with lots of discussion and support along the way. Seeing the people we support recognise their own growth and changes in a short time is brilliant – one of our team has really enjoyed helping out with printing and has recently learnt the process so well that they can now do it totally unsupported. They felt so proud, and it was a joy to see them achieve something that felt really meaningful to them.’
Joe, a trainee at Brandon Packaging, said: “I like coming here because I get to work with my friends. I like doing everything here. I feel like it’s really helped me get better at reading and maths.”
