Ladan Hong is the Widening Participation Careers Consultant for The Careers Group, based at King’s College London. In this post she discusses the global internship programme run by Kings College and reflects on what it means for social justice.

I’ll start with a little about my background; I am of Iranian heritage, born in Sweden but lived most of my life in the UK. I currently both live and work in London, since having moved from Brighton to start university. I have always worked in the field of Widening Participation, starting as a Student Ambassador at the age of 18 and going straight into work upon graduating. In 2010, I decided to begin a PgDip in Careers Guidance but it took till 2016 for me to make the career change into careers!

To me, social justice is about being able to ensure everyone gets a fair chance in life, in what they chose to do or be, irrespective of things such as race, gender and disability. It means that everyone is respected, and their rights are protected.

The role of social justice in career guidance practice is being an advocate for those experiencing oppression and social injustices. It is to collectively be able to challenge the status quo and to empower students from marginalised groups to perhaps approach their career journey through a different/broader perspective. 

My role was created and funded through King’s College London’s Access and Participation Plan (APP). My remit covers the whole student journey, from pre-entry, current student to graduates. The focus of the role is delivering a targeted programme called Careers+, which is a programme of careers related activities targeted at students from under-represented groups.

The Careers+ Global Internship Programme

As part of the Careers+ provision, we received additional funding of £30,000 from the APP  and King’s Global mobility & study abroad team to create a Careers+ Global Internship Program (C+ GIP) for students to gain work experience abroad. The scheme aimed to support the student in gaining international experience as students with this experience are more likely to be employed after graduation, earn more and be in a graduate level job.

The scheme consists of a series of bespoke workshops, one-to-one support, a paid 1-week micro-internship in a King’s department during the Easter Break and concludes with a fully funded 4-week internship (which was in Hong Kong in 2019)

It advanced the social justice agenda by:

• Providing a scaffolded approach by including workshops to help prepare students for work in a professional space and through the application process.
• The 1-week internship helped the students prepare for commencing the longer internship in an unfamiliar country.
• The fully funded scheme allowed students to access an opportunity that would have otherwise cost them £3,000-£4,000 each.
• We ensured that the recruitment process was contextualised to recognise more disadvantaged students and those with less work experience. We wanted to ensure that the students who would ‘travel the longest distance’ from the experience would be prioritised.
• Students were paid London Living Wage for the work.

Why we ran this programme.

The internships sought to bridge the gap between students who have the means and opportunity to undertake global mobility and those who do not. This was informed by research which found that the benefits of participating in global mobility for students from underrepresented groups were significant when compared with those who did not. But despite the benefits of international mobility, students from these groups are less likely to participate in mobility.

We took a social justice informed approach which sought to enable participants to access an experience they may not have been otherwise able to participate in; to empower them and equip them with the tools they would need to take part; and to prioritising students who are intersectional and those with less work experience.

What went well

Overall, we met the aim of ensuring students who may not have had access to this opportunity to take part. This was enabled though providing the wrap-around support, straight from the application process, through to the last one to one de-brief. This process was really effective as the students felt supported throughout and were able to ask questions and develop in a safe space. The scaffolded method of doing a ‘preparatory’ 1-week micro-internship in advance of the 4-week internship really helped the students gain insight into a professional workplace if they had never experienced that before and helped them formulate any question or concerns they had for doing a longer experience abroad.

At the beginning, students were asked to complete a pre-departure questionnaire in which they self-evaluated their confidence, skillset and knowledge of their career choices. Following the programme, students were asked to complete a post-internship questionnaire where once again they could evaluate these skills. We found a marked improvement in the confidence in all 9 participants, all concluded that they felt their job skillset had developed and that they felt more informed on their career choices. 

We had amazing feedback from student, having met or exceeded their expectations of the scheme. They attributed their future career successes (such as gaining further employment) to the fact they had taken part in this scheme.

“I’ve had a really amazing experience – all the workshops and support that we’ve been given. I feel so lucky to have had this opportunity, particularly considering how unlikely it was this time last year that I’d make it to university and I could never have imagined that I’d be interning on the other side of the world!”

“I think it has allowed me to face any situation, in the workplace or elsewhere, no matter what the circumstances, with confidence in my ability to respond appropriately and find a solution(s).”

The future of the programme

It was a great programme to run and a highly successful initiative, with great feedback from the students, I would definitely run it again! After completion of the programme in 2019, we were unfortunately not awarded the same amount of funding so were not able to proceed with offering students with experience abroad in 2020 (and due to the pandemic, it would have been cancelled even if we had!). We did however maintain the micro-internships with Kings departments for 2020, although that was postponed then turned virtual. We ran them again this April and have most recently received funding to place 30 students for 2-weeks in Summer 2021.

What we learnt

Many great things came out of this experience, but it was a rollercoaster! Not only did this years students end their internship experience as the riots began in Hong Kong, but there were also many other challenges faced. We had underestimated the lack of ‘understanding’ that Hong Kong employers had around sensitive issues such as managing neurodiverse students. Despite having explained the background of some of our students, one of the employers was not able to adequately make reasonable adjustments for our student and neither the employer or the agency had any experience or insight into managing the challenges faced by the student (despite being assured they did!). This resulted in a medical emergency, the need for medication and doctor’s appointments and many out of hour calls to the student, their mum, the agent, and The Intern Group!

We also realised the importance of managing the expectation of students of the types of roles they would be undertaking in Hong Kong and the cultural implications on the workplace (despite having had a workshop on the topic). Students were concerned about the use of masks (this was pre-pandemic!), the lack of input from managers and two e-mailed asking to be placed elsewhere because of this.

We also had not considered all the costs that these students may incur, such as travel to the airport or emergency cash for medical emergencies, but luckily in our case we had some remaining budget so although somewhat troublesome, it was an issue we were able to address.

My advice for others running similar programmes would be to be as transparent about the process and what the programme involves as you can be with students. Really try to manage student, as well as employer expectations. And when it comes to the finances, check your numbers & check again!

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