“Work-based learning for me was everything”

What Steven asked Lucy Mason, Work-Based Learning Manager at Medway Maritime Hospital and MidKent College Special Stakeholder

Lucy Mason is a MidKent College alumna who was recently awarded a Special Stakeholder Award by the organisation. She is now responsible for apprenticeships at Medway Maritime Hospital, where Steven met her to talk about her journey from hairdressing student to hairdressing lecturer, her work with supported internships, and why if you can get paid for learning, would you do it any other way?

Lucy Mason

What is your official occupation?
I am a Work-Based Learning Manager, and I manage the apprenticeships and widening participation projects at the hospital. Bit of a mouthful.

Do you have a medical background?
No, I don’t. I have an education background.

How did you come to work at the hospital?
I’ve been at the hospital five years. I saw an advert for looking for someone to look after apprenticeships and supported internships. They’re two things that don’t necessarily go hand in hand. I knew the advert was calling me. There are not many people that can do both. I saw it and took the opportunity to come to the hospital and start a new career, start something different.

What does your average day entail?
I’ve got a hybrid role, so I can work from home or in the hospital. I get to work mainly from my laptop, and then equally, I go to different education establishments and talk to young people. I help to organise careers events. I also give one-to-one careers advice to staff. I’ve even signed up to do an apprenticeship myself. I’m doing Careers Guidance, so I’ll be doing a lot more of that every day, so I can gain my evidence for my apprenticeship, which starts in October. I speak to people about what an apprenticeship is, the different programmes available, and sign people up to apprenticeships. You’ve actually caught me at a really busy time at the moment because September is our largest intake. It’s heavily paperwork driven, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.

What is a supported internship?
A supported internship is for students aged 16 to 25 who have learning difficulties or disabilities and have an educational healthcare plan in place. A training provider provides the employability skills, English and maths and the wraparound skills required to get work, and then they find an employer, which is where we come in. We help support them in work to put those skills into practice for up to 12 months, and then hopefully find employment at the end, whether it’s with us or with someone else.

There’ll be many readers who are only aware of A-levels. Could you explain what a T-level is?
So, a T-level, which is based at a college or a sixth form, is an academic qualification which is equivalent to three A-levels in, for example, health or science and digital. They’re the three we’re working with at the moment. Then, as part of that full-time course at college, they come to us for a work placement for 315 hours. We currently host health, science, and digital skills placements for students, and some students have recently started their eight-week placement with us.

How many students are you able to support in an academic year?
We currently have 20 students on placement with us, the largest number we have ever had.

What makes someone a Special Stakeholder?
Well, me apparently. It was a bit of a shock to get the award, but I think being a Special Stakeholder is about working with partners to create opportunities for young people in our community. We’re a big organisation, we’ve got a lot of people that we need to talk to about what a T-level is, what work experience is, what internships are. I’m there to be the buffer, to spread the love and to motivate the teams at the hospital to consider providing young people with a placement and helping them to gain employment later down the line, whether that’s with the hospital or somewhere else.

What is that stakeholder aspect? What does that mean?
What it means is, we come to the table with MidKent College as a prime stakeholder in gaining opportunities, whether it’s work experience or employment, at the hospital. It’s just opening those doors and going above and beyond to get those young people in and to hopefully help build our workforce for the future.

And due to the nature of the students or the T-levels, is MidKent College the only educational place you work with?
We work with lots of different schools locally. Obviously, MidKent is our local college. We do use our T-level students from them. However, we have worked with other colleges before, and we work with local Medway and Kent schools for work experience placements. Your traditional work experience placements as well, that’s another thing that we do.

Do you work with people at university level or post-grad level?
My role is to work with school and college students or young people with educational healthcare plans up to the age of 25. We do work with university students, but a different department looks after that aspect.

If someone wanted to do their placement with the hospital, do they apply to you, or do they go to the college or the school?
Candidates can apply directly to us for their placement. With T-level students, because of our relationship with MidKent, we take applications from their students, but we also have an advert on our website, and we would consider any school, sixth form or other colleges who want their T-level students to do their placement with us.