Youth Internship Program

About the Program

Category: Children and Youth (Best in Category)

Year: 2017

San Diego Workforce Partnership (SDWP) is the local Workforce Development Board, designated by the City and County of San Diego. They fund youth programs that provide work-readiness training to youth from low-income households as well as youth who are at risk of dropping out of school. The goal is to prepare youth for high school graduation, post-secondary education and, ultimately, a career. SDWP approached the County of San Diego about the possibility of internships with the County. The County’s Department of Human Resources (DHR) partnered with the SDWP and Connect2Careers (C2C) to pilot an internship program for these at-risk youth. For the pilot, 50 interns were hired and placed in 17 different County departments. The interns worked up to 15 hours per week and were allowed to arrange their work schedules with their departments in order to accommodate work, school and childcare issues as well as department needs. Unfortunately, some interns were not able to balance their multiple scheduling needs and did not complete the program. This resulted in a total of 39 interns who successfully completed the internship program. After reviewing the results of the pilot internship program, the County is will be expanding the program to a larger pool during the summer of 2017.