Beyond Big Business, Opportunities and Challenges for Irish HEIs in Engaging with Family Businesses and Community & Voluntary Groups through the Student Work Placement Process

The purpose of this paper is to examine the opportunities and challenges for Irish HEIs in engaging with these organisations through the student work placement process. While a substantial amount of valuable work has already been carried out by the REAP project in ascertaining the current state of work placement provision in Ireland and developing a general set of guidelines for good practice in placement for HEIs, employers and students, there is an opportunity to take this body of work a step further. Indeed, the main aim of this report is to present a best practice model for engagement on work placement between Irish HEIs and specific types of organisations, namely family businesses and community and voluntary groups, as a one-size-fits-all approach may not necessarily be the best way to deal with these organisations. The key questions this work will therefore address include how can HEIs reach these organisations and establish lasting partnerships with them? What kind of practical difficulties exist in this type of engagement? How can these obstacles be overcome