COINS Foundation is delighted to announce that COINS Global will now be working closely with DFN Project Search as a new partner providing work experience placements for their students.
Committed to transforming the lives of young people with autism, DFN Project Search focusses on supporting the transition of young people from education through to careers. Their programs cover everything from, learning to negotiate a commute using public transport, to CV production and interview techniques that will give them knowledge and confidence during the recruitment process. Potentially the most significant part of the course is the hands on, practical work experience they gain during the program, learning different skills and processes in an organisation and since 2016, an average of 60% of their interns have gone on to secure full-time paid jobs.
A current supporter of DFN Project Search, COINS Foundation is proud to be part of this program, providing opportunities for the interns to gain experience in another industry as well as introducing our projects and philosophy of using enterprise as a force for good. Although the partnership was already in the pipeline, it was not due to launch until later this year, however, the recent pandemic restrictions meant that the students’ January placements were no longer possible. Fortunately, COINS was able to step in as a last-minute substitute and on 18th January 10 students received their first induction from COINS COO, Chris Westbury:
“As part of the introduction, as we often do with COINS’ own staff, we aim to get people thinking about all of the construction that goes on around them every day and wonder ‘what and who was involved in building that?’ It was great to meet the interns for the very first time, they were keen to ask questions about COINS, our customers and what they do.”
Rahma Maina, who works with the interns as part of the Project Search program, was also enthusiastic following the first session and about the upcoming weeks:
“COINS engaging in Project Search was brilliant, the students were learning new vocabularies and about the things that COINS do. They had a few questions which they asked on the day and then they visited the website to find the answers to any others they had afterwards. It gave them the opportunity to build on what they’d learned from the presentation.”
Over the next few months, the interns will work remotely with both COINS and COINS Foundation to learn about various aspects of the business and different roles within this.
“It’ll be great to work with the young interns and to provide them with an opportunity to gather some experience of business activity and what we do at COINS day to day. Because of the pandemic restrictions we are starting in a small way but hope to build on that with more and wider experience through the year.” - Chris Westbury, COINS COO
We hope that this will be the start of an exciting partnership and look forwards to seeing it develop further.