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The Learning to Work (LTW) program in NYC partners community-based organizations (CBOs) with transfer high schools and Young Adult Borough Centers (YABCs) to serve students for whom the traditional school system hasn’t worked. Eskolta’s recent research has identified six core elements for implementing the program at its best: 1) holistic services, woven together with care; 2) supportive relationships as a foundation; 3) individualized postsecondary planning; 4) purposeful work-based learning opportunities; 5) partnership clarity and systems for collaboration; and 6) well-resourced, committed staff. With this toolkit we zoom in on work-based learning, and in particular, internships.
Our analysis found that when compared to LTW students of similar academic standing, those who participated in paid work-based learning earned an average of 1.1 more credits that year, and their odds of graduating increased by a factor of three.
LTW work-based learning is also inclusive, serving Black and low-income students at higher rates, and students with IEPs at equitable rates.
What follows are vetted tools and guidance for the LTW internship program at its best. These emerged from a series of workgroup sessions with veteran internship coordinators and program leads from five CBOs around the city. We also include insights from three site visits to LTW programs at West Brooklyn Community High School, Voyages Preparatory High School, and Lehman High School YABC, where we talked with students and observed practices in action.
Finally, it is worth noting what is missing from this toolkit. Internships are just one aspect of LTW’s work-based learning program. Students also engage in community service projects, certificate-granting programs, and industry-aligned training. We focus on internships here because internship coordinators have developed more systematic feedback loops and evaluation tools for internships, and so the practices are most ready to be widely shared. However, we see this as a beginning. In the future, we hope to augment the tools here with the strategies and practices that enable all aspects of work-based learning, as LTW prepares students to succeed in an ever-evolving postsecondary landscape.
Acknowledgments
We thank our LTW Resource Workgroup for sharing their experiences and contributing their own resources and feedback to this toolkit. Contributors include: Trequan Bekka and Joanna Condori, Good Shepherd Services; Lherissa Nemorin and Shray Richardson, CAMBA; Shawn Henry and Antonette Cammock, Queens Community House; Allan Avidano, New York Center for Interpersonal Development; Natalia Alvarez-Plaud, East Side House. We also thank our hosts at West Brooklyn Community High School, Voyages Preparatory High School, and Lehman High School YABC, who graciously opened their doors to our researchers, and whose students provided candid reflection on their experiences with the internship program. We hope their stories help this toolkit come alive.
How to Use this Toolkit
This toolkit provides LTW internship coordinators with a streamlined process for tracking internship quality with interns and site supervisors. It encompasses site development, consistent assessment, and rich feedback on interns’ skill development. We hope you will customize the tools to your site’s needs, and continually refine them as you learn what works and what doesn’t.
We believe this toolkit will be helpful when:
Onboarding new internship coordinators, as a guidepost for developing quality internships
Reflecting with interns and site supervisors on how to continually develop your program
Conducting professional development and communities of practice
Building community across the program, as a resource hub for internship coordinators that we hope will be refined and expanded as we gather input and develop future tools
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