Center for Health Workforce at Mason

On November 14, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) announced the launch of two free online courses. The courses support the readiness of employers and students to participate in internships and other work-based learning opportunities.

The two courses, “Developing an Internship Program” and “Developing Career Readiness Skills,” are available on the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (V-TOP) website.

For Employers: “Developing an Internship Program” is a series of online, self-paced modules created for employers that review the best practices for developing an internship program for a small to mid-sized business. Each of the modules offers fundamentals for getting started, time-saving resources and strategies for successfully developing and implementing an internship program.

For Students: “Developing Career Readiness Skills” modules ensure students take their career readiness to a new level. The self-paced modules help students identify and further develop career readiness skills by establishing individualized competency development goals, creating a plan for accomplishing those goals, articulating accomplishments and shaping a competency development story.

“These free online resources, combined with one-on-one and small-group support provided by V-TOP’s regional grantees and their partners, will support the recruitment of new employer partners interested in hosting interns,” said SCHEV director Peter Blake. “Further, they will support students who wish to gain work-ready skills prior to and during their work experiences.”