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Child Development Internships

 

Purpose and Basic Structure of an Internship

The internship experience is set up to better prepare students for possible job opportunities that will be available in the child and family field after you graduate. It should provide you with skills that will be useful to you later. It should also provide you with a mentored experience, where you are being provided regular instruction and guidance by a supervisor.

 

A Child Development internship can consist of any job experience that allows you to learn more about working with or in behalf of infants, children, adolescents, or whole families. It should also allow you the opportunity to use the developmental skills you have learned in your different classes within our major.

 

Fundamental Criteria for Doing an Internship in Child Development:

  • The intern program in Child Development requires a minimum of 2 credits worth of internship experience. At 80 hours per credit, this means you will need to work at least 160 hours.
  • The hours completed for an internship need to be spread across a minimum of 7 to 8 weeks of time. This is to increase the likelihood of you experiencing mentored guidance during your internship, so that it is not just a very short-term job.
  • If internships are completed during your off-track period (i.e., no other classes) the credits you take will only cost half as much as normal.
  • One of your first tasks as an intern will be to define your own goals and objectives of your internship experience. You later then assess the success of your internship experience in a report submitted at the end.  There are other tasks that you must complete during your experience, but the course syllabus will alert you to all of the expectations of the experience in more detail.
  • Once your goals and objectives have been defined, weekly journals must be recorded and submitted to your internship coordinator (me) using I-Learn.

 

Learning More About the Internship Experience

In preparing for an internship, it is helpful to review the Sample Master Agreement that is available on the BYU-Idaho internship website. This document defines what is expected from the student, from the experience provider, and from the University. Knowledge of this can be helpful as you explore possible internship opportunities and the experience provider wants to know what is expected from you and them in order for the internship to be a good experience for all involved.

 

When you are ready to narrow down your internship opportunities, I would be happy to meet with you and provide an internship application form. Please contact me, Brother McCoy, at my office (223P Clarke), by phone (208-496-1342), or by e-mail (mccoyk@byui.edu).

 

 

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