Inclusive programs focusing on professional and social development can maximize the internship experience for students with disabilities. Several key components can enhance the effectiveness of such programs, including setting clear expectations and goals for the interns, developing and managing a work plan, creating opportunities for networking and social interactions, and ensuring that the workplace is accessible.
Many resources are available online, including articles from this site, researchers, and government entities. But what do disabled practitioners in the field see as the trends now?
Dannie Lynn Fountain, a disabled HR professional, founder of her firm, Focused on People, and holder of a role at Google, says that the brief period that interns are with companies, usually three to six months, is something to pay attention to when promoting inclusion for your interns.
“Typically, accommodations requests and supporting disabled folks at work take, at the bare minimum, some back-and-forth emails, at the longest a handful of meetings, a manager sign-off, etc. That can take a month-plus, so if you have an intern who's only engaged for three months, a third of their working time is forcibly unaccommodated.”
Fountain says that one way to mitigate this is to prioritize onboarding for disabled interns, especially when interns are selected months in advance. In her experience, the older a company is and the more invested it is in accessibility—with policies and procedures already in place—the better off the company and the intern will be.
“I feel that the standard advice is usually either go for an enterprise company for the name on the resume, or go for a really sexy startup for the sake of impact. My advice to interns in this case would actually be to avoid startups and small businesses because they don't have the processes. If the selling point of a startup is we haven't built anything, you get to build it. The same is true for their accommodations.”
In terms of digital accessibility, those accommodations could be physical, like a new monitor or standing desk; they could be environmental, like needing blocked out time in their calendar to reduce distractions in an increasingly remote world; or they could be; and they could also be procedural, such as needing anything task-related in writing.
One of the biggest challenges for interns is choosing whether to disclose their disabilities and how to approach those conversations with employers. Jennifer Alumbaugh, a therapist turned access consultant through her company Expansive Expressions, says that one of the best ways interns and companies can approach these challenging conversations is through the lens of a strengths-based approach. So, instead of seeing accommodation as a checklist or as being reliant on someone’s medical diagnosis, they’re centered on what can help the intern do their best work.
“Being able to say something like, ‘This [task] is really important to me, and I want to do a good job. Here's what helps me do a good job.’ That protects the person from disclosing any details about themselves, but also helps them advocate for what they need.”
Neither Fountain nor Alumbaugh identified as disabled when they went through internships in their respective fields. Fountain says that looking back on that time period highlights just how helpful accommodations would have been for her.
“I was actually fired from my very first internship because I was essentially engaging in hyper focus, I was completing my work very quickly, and then I had the dead time. And that dead time became more visible than my work product did…If you're undiagnosed and or self-diagnosed, be conscientious of what that means in terms of how your performance will be perceived.”
Whether an intern feels comfortable discussing their disability can often rely on whether the person they report directly to appears welcoming. Alumbaugh, who came to understand themselves as disabled at 42, has written several resources on the topic and says that the trap employers can fall into, particularly with those who will only be with the company a short while, is being prescriptive.
“Believe what the person is saying, believe that they know the supports that they need, and [know] that they are asking for them. And if they haven't asked for certain support, don't impose it on them.”
For example, ensuring employees don’t always have cameras on during a Zoom meeting can support neurodivergent employees by lessening their need (real or presumed) to mask during the entire workday. Another example, during the onboarding process, is having a good grasp of what your company can offer. Do you have working groups that include disabled employees? Do you know your HR department’s process for accommodations? Do you know others in the company you can connect this intern with? These are all key questions to ask yourself as a company that wants to make space for disabled interns.
And yet, no matter how inclusive a company purports to be, Fountain says self-advocacy is currently a large part of the picture. She suggests that self-preservation is the name of the game regardless of whether your disability is visible or not to prospective employers.
“Not to borrow a line from The Devil Wears Prada, but gird your loins for that initial process. And be aware that not only are you an intern entering into this process with the hope of a full-time offer at the end, and so you're already on edge because your performance is being measured every single second, but you're also going to have to engage in more self-advocacy than your peers. And until the larger accommodations process changes, that's not going anywhere.”
By creating inclusive internship experiences, organizations can advance the interns with disabilities, enhance their own reputation, and attract funders, prospective interns, and employees, including those with disabilities.