Line Manager Name: Molly Southwood
Job Title: Chief Executive Officer
Pathways Programme: Pathways to Charity and Development 2024
Organisation Summary: Exeter Leukaemia Fun (ELF) was founded in 1980 and supports patients in Devon living with blood cancer and other blood disorders. ELF offers a range of services directly to patients including; counselling and wellbeing, transport, financial support, complementary therapy and accommodation in Exeter during treatment. We also support the Royal Devon United Healthcare Trust with fellowships for medical staff, equipment purchase and capital projects. We are small organisation with 10 paid staff and a team of volunteers. We are entirely funded by voluntary donations, with an annual turnover of around £450,000.
How did hosting an intern via the Professional Pathways programme benefit you and your organisation/department?
Our intern kicked off a number of projects that we hadn’t had time to get off the ground. The work he did provides us a strong base to finally take them forward.
How was your experience of hosting a Pathways intern?
Our experience was really positive. We offered a part-time hybrid working pattern, and sat down together with him on the first day to agree a schedule for the two weeks. This way we were able to ensure he had the support he needed to move ahead with the projects we’d given him, while not having to disrupt our own schedules too much. As this was our intern’s first experience in an office we did find it helped to set very clear projects and deadlines, but this also helped to focus our own thinking about what we wanted to achieve.
Given the Professional Pathways internship is 35 hours in total, how would you recommend ensuring both you and your intern(s) gain as much as possible from the experience?
We spent some time in advance of our intern’s arrival planning out several projects for him to take forward. On his first day we offered him an abbreviated version of the induction we offer to all staff, to make sure he knew his way around and what our charity objectives are. Participating in the group project also meant he had done some ground work himself.
During the internship we checked in at regular points to make sure work was on track. We found we had to offer more regular check-ins than we might do for other staff, but having set the schedule ahead of time made this quite easy to manage.
Why would you recommend hosting an intern via Professional Pathways?
Absolutely; our intern brought a huge amount of positive energy to the team. We loved having him in the office.