An Important and Valuable Learning Tool
Getting real world job experience can be tricky, but not for students participating in the Berkshire County Regional Employment Board's Connecting Activities Internship Program. Serving Berkshire County youths and the business community since 1991, the program is open to all youth ages 14-21 and presently employs over 500 youth each year at 350 companies in the region.
“Being able to experience the career on a day-to-day basis gives me the courage to one day do it on my own.”
The Massachusetts Department of Education funds the program that supports the participation of eleven high schools in Berkshire County. Additional work-basedlearning activities are incorporated within the academic curriculum at each school.
"I feel that when you visit for a day, or maybe not visit at all, you don't have a true feeling for the career. Being able to experience the career on a day-to-day basis gives me the courage to one day do it on my own," said Melinda Jones*, a Drury High School student.
The extensive community partnership the Connecting Activities Internship Program has fostered over the years provides an enriching experience for participating students, educators and employers, benefiting the entire Berkshire community by creating a competent and productive future workforce.
For employers, participating in Connecting Activities allows them to become the main partners in education by playing the most vital role as mentors for our region's youth. Likewise, employers are given the opportunity to have a direct hand in shaping the future Berkshire County workforce by establishing a sizeable pool of determined, confident and skilled workers to meet current 21st Century high demands.
Clearly a win-win situation, employers' solid connections to the county's school systems provide an opportunity to communicate required job-specific proficiencies to the educational system, therefore helping to reduce future costs of recruitment and training and to further improve employee retention.
The participation on behalf of the business community assists educational systems in making education more relevant and meaningful to students. In addition, employers annually open their doors to Berkshire County educators through the BCREB Teacher Externship Program, providing an opportunity for all teachers to explore career areas related to their disciplines and discover real-world applications that they can incorporate within their curriculums.
The Connecting Activities Internship Program provides youth with the necessary support and guidance to make their first real work experience a structured and valuable learning tool that strives to develop the necessary work-related foundation skills that all students must recognize as the basis for their future career success.
Youth are also given the opportunity to get a head-start on developing the necessary academic and career related skills needed in order to successfully compete in post-secondary education, training programs and most importantly, the workplace.
"Anyone can tell you the upsides to being a physical therapist, but some days that ideal image you may have in your head does not always come true. Being able to be in the office five days a week has given me the opportunity to see the ups and downs. Knowing that the career has flaws, just as any career does, prepares me for the work environment I will one day be part of...I feel that the internship has taught me a different way of learning," said Jones.
Especially important is the engagement of the at-risk population in the Internship Program that has notably saved the academic and career success of hundreds of youth throughout its sixteen years of implementation. Stated by the Internship Program Coordinator at Mt. Everett Regional High School describing a current student intern: "Michael Davidson* has been a student in our alternative program since the seventh grade. It would not be an exaggeration to say that he was at risk for dropping out of school. In the program, he has been interning at an auto mechanics garage and loves what he is doing. His boss said that he does great work and is turning into a fine mechanic. He is scheduled to graduate in June and will be the first in his family to get a high school diploma," stated the program coordinator at Mt. Everett Regional High School.
For more information regarding this program and additional BCREB work-based-learning activities, please contact Heather Shogry at 413-442-7177 x103 / youth@berkshirereb.org
*Student names have been changed to protect their identities.