Ladders for Leaders is often a young person’s capstone experience within their Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP) journey. Our Ladders for Leaders employer partners are distinguished from SYEP worksites by providing more advanced internship opportunities for young adults who are academically ambitious, have prior work experience, and are ready to tackle higher level projects and objectives that serve as building blocks for future employment. 

What does an internship experience look like in the Ladders for Leaders program?

Ladders for Leaders internships must have intentional learning goals for each role and built-in mentorship opportunities for students, allowing youth build upon their existing skills and align their work experience more closely with their academic majors and entry-level career aspirations.

What type of work can I assign to my intern?

Interns can engage in a wide range of supervised, professional activities and tasks that include, but are not limited to:

• Coding, software engineering, hardware and network-related tasks, general IT projects Financial or market research and analysis

• Operations: purchasing, accounting, data entry and analysis, event planning

• Communications: social media research and content creation, photography, digital media projects Clerical and administrative: report writing, notetaking, scheduling, customer service, general HR tasks

• Employers MUST meet a minimum commitment of six (6) weeks, twenty-five (25) hours of work per week for each intern

• Interns must be paid at least NYS minimum wage of $16.5/hour  

• Employers are expected to provide adequate workspace and supervision

• Students will only work at approved locations

• Students should not work from your home, internet cafes or similar spaces; however, they can have work form home days int heir own homes

Internship Supervisors are asked to:

• Provide students with meaningful work throughout their internship

• Provide appropriate space and equipment for students to work (desk, computer, etc.)

• Be present at worksites each day a student is in the office

• Participate in a voluntary site visit

• Complete an evaluation at the end of the program for each student

1. Reach out to confirm their first day and start time, as well as any special instructions (required documents, building security, etc..)

2. Brief your team. Be sure the people around the intern know he/she is coming and some of the projects they will support

3. Assign a supervisor and identify projects and responsibilities

4. Plan first day activities, including a meeting with their supervisor, an office tour, and an overview of expectations 

5. Create a schedule for the intern including regular time with their supervisor

As part of the process, SYEP supervisors must approve intern timesheets weekly through the Worksite Portal. 

To align with DYCD security practices, NYC.ID was integrated with the Worksite Portal. All employers will need to use NYC.ID to access the Worksite Portal.

When a user logs into the Portal for the first time, the system will match the email address from their NYC.ID account to their existing YEPS Worksite Portal account. It is imperative that the email address you use for NYC.ID is the same email address you have listed in your YEPS user profile.

Please find an Instructional Video. 

Disclaimer: Providers will no longer have the ability to reset Worksite Portal user passwords. Users who forget their password will need to reset it through the NYC.ID system.  

• Worksite supervisors are responsible for reviewing  and then verifying the hours entered by participants before the portal closes. Worksite supervisors must approve participant hours between Sunday and Monday, no later than 5:00 p.m. This ensures that CBOs can process the hours in time for payroll.

  • • CBO Staff Modifications: If a worksite supervisor misses the deadline, CBO staff will be reaching out for approval or modify the hours

    • Weekly Commitment: CBOs commit the hours for payroll every Tuesday at 2 p.m. Therefore, any changes to hours must be made before the Adjustment of Hours: Any adjustments to hours will take effect in the following week.

• Timesheets should reflect the schedule discussed at the start of the program unless schedule changes were made between the supervisor and participant

• Please note that you are not able to make any changes to participant hours. If there is a discrepancy or a correction is needed, please contact the SYEP team directly to address the issue.

⚠️ Important: If participant hours are not approved or the SYEP team cannot reach you for verification, your participant will not be paid. Timely approvals are critical to ensure proper payroll processing. 

IMPORTANT: If your worksite is hosting more than one L4L intern and there are several supervisors identified please note that the city's timesheet database cannot link the interns to their respective supervisors. All interns will show up under the same worksite and the supervisors can disregard the interns that are not theirs that they see in the system. We apologize for this inconvenience since we recognize the system's limitations. 

Per SYEP/L4L and NYS Requirements:

• Lunch hours are NOT paid for.

• Participants can not work more than 8 hours a day (8 hours of paid work plus 1 hour lunch totaling 9 hours.).

• After working five (5) hours, participants must take at least a 30-minute unpaid lunch break. After working seven (7) hours, they must take at least a one-hour unpaid lunch break. Please ensure that participants' work schedules are managed accordingly. 

• Participants are limited to 25 hours a week, maximum.

• Times must be rounded up to quarter-hour increments. (E.g., if you start work at 8:42, your starting time should be 8:45.)

• Make up hours: Interns do not get paid for sick days or for pre-determined appointments/ vacations and must notify you in advance. It is at the employer's discretion whether interns should make up hours missed. Participants can make up these hours the week following the missed time or throughout the six-week program.

  1. 1. 1. • Once the hours are made up, it is up to the intern to communicate with L4L and they need to send a manual timesheet to L4L for processing. If this is the route you choose, please let us know so we can provide the intern with the manual timesheet and guidance. 

           • We will be able to make adjustments on the back end by adding additional hours to compensate for the missed time.

It is the responsibility of the participants to submit their timesheets. The supervisor is solely responsible for reviewing and signing off on the participant's timesheets at the end of the week. Participants will receive the timesheet link and instructions. 

As part of the program, participant evaluations are required. Please complete one evaluation per participant.

Evaluations can be submitted electronically via the employer portal (the same system used to approve timesheets). 

Here’s how to complete the process, you can also use this presentation:

• Login Link: Go to Worksite Portal

• You will see a tab labeled “Evaluations”

• Start Evaluation: Select your intern and click “Edit” to start the evaluation process.

• Review and Sign: Please make sure to sign the evaluation.

Evaluations should be reviewed with participants, as they are a key component of the summer experience and contribute significantly to each intern’s professional development. These forms provide valuable feedback on work performance and progress, helping interns reflect on their strengths and identify areas for growth. 

• Only "6th week" evaluations are required for L4L participants. No "3rd week" evaluations are required

The following incidents must be immediately reported to your Ladders for Leaders Program Provider:

• Bodily injury, threats to an individual’s well-being, self-abusive behavior, property damage, shootings, or fires

• Child abuse, including incidents that may be sexual in nature, and occurrences involving inappropriate personal boundaries, communications, touching, or photos incidents for which Emergency Medical Services or Police are called, and incidents that may be of media Interest 

• Any other Incident that potentially impacts the health, safety, or well-being of an individual, property, or the operation of a DYCD-funded program and any incident that stems from or is otherwise related to DYCD-funded programming 

*In the event that an intern is injured while engaged in a work activity, the worksite must notify their Ladders for Leaders Program Provider as soon as possible.

On rare occasions, disciplinary action must be taken concerning intern performance. If you have concerns with your intern’s attendance and punctuality, workplace etiquette, attitude toward staff, or overall performance, you must take the following steps until the problem is resolved:

1. Give the intern a verbal warning. Identify the problematic behavior and make suggestions for improvement.

2. Contact the L4L program staff as soon as a problem becomes chronic and repetitive. It is imperative that you let us know about an issue as soon as possible. As the employer of record, we must speak to students about professional behavior and potential disciplinary actions.

3.  The intern will receive a Written Warning from the L4L Program Manager, which will include a two-week timeframe in which the intern can correct his/her behavior.

4.  If the intern’s behavior does not improve within two weeks, reach out to the L4L Program Manager for the next steps.

Worksites and supervisors should take into consideration the age, maturity, and experience level of the intern, as well as the need for appropriate supervision, training, or disciplinary action. Worksites should work with their Program Provider regarding any incident deemed appropriate to report or that the worksite is unable to resolve. If the worksite has determined that they no longer wish to have an intern working at their site, the supervisor must contact the Program Provider to notify them of the situation and await their recommendation.

We ask that you contact L4L program staff before informing any interns that they have been terminated. Since the intern is an employee of L4L, terminations will become a part of their permanent employment record with L4L and may impact their ability to find employment with the organization in the future.