Contact: Laura Osberger,br>
lauraosberger@schev.edu
(804) 387-5191
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 14, 2022
RICHMOND - The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) today 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.
The Innovative Internship Fund and Program, also known as the Virginia Talent + Opportunity Partnership (V-TOP), has provided resources to employers, students and institutions of higher education since 2020. Funded by the General Assembly and administered by SCHEV in partnership with the Virginia Chamber of Commerce Foundation, the purpose of the program is to expand paid and credit-bearing student internships and other work-based learning opportunities in collaboration with Virginia employers.
“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.”
Regional grantees include the University of Mary Washington, Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University (in partnership with ChamberRVA), Old Dominion University and the University of Virginia (in partnership with Virginia Career Works – Piedmont). SCHEV plans to award a total of nine regional grants across the Commonwealth by 2024.
The newly released courses are the first two sets of modules scheduled to be released. Future topics include a student internship toolkit that will cover tools and strategies for seeking an internship, resume development, interviews, preparing for the first few days in the internship, maximizing the experience and ending the internship professionally.
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The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia is the state’s coordinating agency for higher education. With Pathways to Opportunity: The Virginia Plan for Higher Education, SCHEV is dedicated to making Virginia the best state for education by 2030. For more on this statewide strategic plan, visit schev.edu/TheVirginiaPlan.
