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availability: the candidate for the course must be easy to reach, in cases where he 2 Choice of country
is to be contacted.
10 steps to find a course by responding to an offer The notion of internship differs from one country to another. Some countries do
1. List the activity sectors and sub-sectors chosen not understand courses as a complement to training. In others, such as Germany,
2. List the target countries where the habit of training courses is normal and of long standing, businesses do
3. Consider the extent of possible projects not always demand conventional documents. Taking a course abroad therefore
4. Draft a covering letter and a CV first requires the understanding of this practice in the host country. This is
5. List the relevant websites and social networks described in the pages specific to each country in the second part of this booklet.
6. Post a candidacy on the websites and social networks identified, clearly In Great Britain, for example, the terms ‘traineeship’, ‘internship’, ‘work placement’
indicating contact details or ‘work-experience’ come fairly close to the French 'stage', but the practice is
7. Monitor the offers, set up an 'alert' function less widespread, unlike 'jobs'. In Ireland, the internship exists but with specific
8. In the case of a proposition, be reactive and available for an on-the-spot characteristics: companies are more likely to accept young people for observation
or long-distance interview periods of one to two weeks.
9. Ask the training establishment for a training contract, and have it
translated if necessary ✓ The linguistic aspect
10. Have it completed by the employer and then endorsed by the educational Among candidates' motivations in seeking internships abroad, their linguistic
institution development constitutes a major element. For this reason, it is best to draw up a
personal balance sheet of general skills, and evaluate the linguistic level, before
 For people with disabilities, the specialist reception services in European departure (see § 8: linguistic preparation). The choice of country is often quite
universities can be a good source of information on the conditions for undertaking naturally oriented towards English-speaking countries: United Kingdom mainly,
a course in that country. In the context of an Erasmus+ course, moreover, care
is specifically adapted to their needs: www.agence-erasmus.fr/page/erasmus- or even Republic of Ireland (Canada, United States and Australia outside Europe).
handicap. Although the Anglo-Saxon world is fairly open to short professional experiences in
the context of internships, these countries alone cannot respond to the countless
Resources to find information on courses in Europe for people with disabilities: requests which are made. Private organizations have seized this opportunity
to make offers of placement, subject to financial contributions. However this
+ associations for students with + The Handisup network intervention is not necessarily required, particularly because it is difficult to
disabilities www.handisup.asso.fr guarantee the reliability and quality of such services in advance. At the very least,

+ l’ARPEJEH + the Droit au Savoir association their term of existence should be checked, assuming that longer-established
www.arpejeh.com/site www.droitausavoir.asso.fr organizations would have formed more, and more durable, relationships with
+ the association Tremplin + the website travail-emploi.gouv.fr economic stakeholders.
www.tremplin-handicap.fr Communication and comprehension skills are not merely linguistic. In many
+ www.onisep.fr/Scolarite-et-handicap countries, an international vehicular language, or lingua franca, is used in addition
+ Handi-U (Ministry of National Education) + Information platforms and mobile to the language of the country itself. The vehicular languages used most often in
www.handi-u.fr apps: ixesn.fr/mapped - the world are English, Spanish, French, German; and outside Europe, Mandarin,
+ the website emploi.handicap.fr/ www.iwheelshare.com Portuguese, Russian and Arabic. This is the case in Scandinavia and northern
European (Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark); Benelux (Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg), the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), the
Balkans (Slovenia, Croatia), and eastern Europe (Poland, Hungary, Romania,
Bulgaria, Slovakia, Czech Republic).

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