What is an Internship?
An internship is a paid or unpaid worksite experience over a specified period of time for a student to develop broad skills through hands-on learning and instruction. Some students will have received classroom training in an occupational area and are interested in exploring that career area in a work setting. Benefits of Internships are many.
What are the Responsibilities of the Employers?
Employers expose a young person to their industry, providing learning-rich training experience and acting as a mentor for the intern for a period of approximately 6 to 8 weeks. As a contribution to building a future workforce, employers will allow the student to explore as many aspects of the business, industry or organization as possible, and provide supervision, guidance and candid evaluation of the intern’s experience at the worksite.
Unpaid interns must be enrolled in either a Regional Occupational Program (ROP) course or in the San Diego City Schools Exploratory Work Experience Education program. Worker’s compensation insurance is provided either by the San Diego County Office of Education for ROP or through San Diego City Schools for their Exploratory Work Experience Education program. Community service is also an option for students volunteering at non-profit organizations with an established volunteer program. Workers’ compensation and general liability is covered by the non-profit agency.
Paid interns must have their workers’ compensation insurance covered by the employer. If the intern is under 18 years of age, employers must acquire a work permit for the minor. This can be done through the minor’s school.
Employers may choose to use a temporary service or staffing agency to employ and pay the intern, thus avoiding the worker compensation and work permit issue. The staffing agency would then be the “employer of record” and would be required to carry the workers’ compensation insurance. The work permit for the employment of a minor would be issued to the staffing agency.
What are the Responsibilities of the Intern?
Interns will be expected to arrive at work on time, dress appropriately, and perform their duties in a pleasant and efficient manner. As their familiarity and expertise with each task grows, it is expected they will be given incremental responsibilities commensurate with their abilities. If at any time the intern is not performing satisfactorily, employers will counsel with the intern as they would with any employee. If this is not an adequate solution, employers will have a school contact person to assist with the situation.
What are the Responsibilities of the School?
Many interns will be enrolled in the ROP program or Work Experience Education. Their teacher will be offering classroom instruction and support on a weekly basis. In addition, the teacher will be making visits to the worksite every three to four weeks to visit with the supervisor and observe how the student is doing on the job. Students who satisfactorily complete their internship through these courses will receive high school credit toward graduation. Students not enrolled in one of the above mentioned programs will have a school internship contact identified for employers to work with. In addition, all interns will be eligible to receive recognition on their transcript
What are the Responsibilities of the Parents?
Parents of interns need to be supportive of their child’s internship experience in the following ways: making sure that their child has adequate transportation for going on interviews and to the worksite, reinforcing good work and personal habits, calling the teacher or internship contact if there is a difficult situation that the child can’t handle themselves, and praising their child when they find out how much an employer values their work.