Work placements can be invaluable, especially to people studying to enter vocations such as health and social care. They can help to show how things learnt in a classroom apply to real-life scenarios, often building students’ confidence and understanding of key concepts.

From September to December 2025, we have had the pleasure of having Charley, a student from Exeter College, on a work placement with us. Charley is in her second year of her Level 3 Health and Social Care course, and hopes to work in forensic psychology in the future.

We sat down with Charley to find out more about her experience.

‘I’ve had a lot of training, on subjects like “Eating, drinking, and swallowing”, and on “Bereavement and grief”. I’ve also done lots of different research projects about, for example, dementias, and grief, which have really helped to expand my knowledge.’

‘Creating leaflets on grief was really interesting; it’s definitely nice to put the information to use, and know that it can be making a difference in the public rather than just for my own knowledge.’

We asked whether her research, especially on rarer forms of dementias, has helped with her particular interests: ‘Definitely. It’s really interesting to see how the mind works and why things happen’. Charley put together some research on Korsakoff’s syndrome, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementias, before re-framing her research to be accessible for the general public.

‘I really enjoyed the “Eating, drinking, and swallowing” training, that was really memorable. The practical elements, like thickening drinks, was really interesting’. This is a new subject that we introduced to our learning programme whilst Charley was on her placement with us. Charley was in the very first session we delivered on it. It is mapped to Level 3 competency, defined by the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT), to empower our staff to recognise dysphagia and know how they can support people experiencing swallowing difficulties.

We asked Charley if she felt she had enough support to carry out the various tasks we set for her: ‘Absolutely. And they all linked really well to my course at college. So it was good to have a little bit of background knowledge, and expanding it massively’.

‘I’ve definitely got something out of my placement with Teign Angels. I’ve learned so much being here’.

Looking to the future, we asked Charley what she hopes to achieve next, and what her next steps are. ‘I’m hoping to go to university, where I know a lot of the stuff I’ve learned can be applied into my uni work. And in general, the skills from working in social care can be carried through for the rest of my career.’

Finally, we asked Charley if she had a message for future work placement students who come to Teign Angels: ‘Apply yourself to the work, and just enjoy it!’

Joseph, our Office Manager and Charley’s mentor, said: ‘It’s been a real pleasure to have Charley with us over the past few months. She’s been amazing with every task we’ve set her, and has approached the placement with enthusiasm, interest, and professionalism. I’m so glad that she’s enjoyed her time with us as much as she has, and we’re going to miss having her with us! We can’t wait to find out how she does with her course, and we’ve given her some flower seed tokens so that she can plant them and think of her time with us whenever she looks at the flowers that grow’.

‘We’re really excited that we’ll be hosting three new students between January and June 2025, and we’re getting ready to set projects for them all as well. We all remember the days when work experience was about making teas for staff, and doing all the bits that no one else wanted to do. But working in adult social care is truly a wondrous career where no two days are the same. We hope to continue including work placement students in the work that we do here at Teign Angels, and making them feel part of the team’.

If you or someone you know is looking for work experience, either for their course or for Work Experience Week at school or college, get in touch with Teign Angels. We’ll be more than happy to talk about a placement in our care team and/or our administration team.