4. Accompanying a young person to the labour market by organizing various forms of work placement

CHAPTER 4 Accompanying a young person to the labour market by organizing various forms of work placement

Author Gintarė Joteikaitė

This section presents the different forms of work placement that a youth worker has to deal with when working with young people and in order to help them to try out in various ways jobs that they are interested in.

LONG-TERM INTERNSHIP

Long-term internships are the most common form of internship, which is recognized and applied in the framework of the formal education system and in enterprise development strategies. This is usually a 1-12 months long project of mutual commitment and benefit, where the trainee, in cooperation with the chosen organization, undertakes to develop the necessary and relevant to him/her competencies as well as work skills. In this case, a written agreement can be concluded between both (trainee and organization) and three (trainee, organization and educational institution) interested parties, in which the objectives, tasks, duration and other conditions of the internship are specified. The advantage of a long-term internship is that during it a young person can examine in more detail and learn more about work specifics and culture of the organization where he/she is doing an internship, to get used to the work regime and develop certain work habits and discipline required for the chosen speciality. Also an indisputable advantage of this form of internship is that trainees often become full-rate paid employees of organizations, as the period of long-term internship also becomes their probation period.

SHORT-TERM INTERNSHIP

Short-term internship has similar goals as long-term one – to get to know in more detail the peculiarities of the chosen speciality by exploring the internal and external processes that are taking place in the host organization. In this case, however, the commitments of the two or three parties mentioned above last significantly shorter, i.e., from one week to one month (in certain cases, a two or three parties’ commitment process which lasts up to three months may also be considered a short-term internship). During long-term internships, the intern is usually more involved in the various work processes in the organization and the related employment relations, whereas during short-term internships, specific limited functions and tasks are usually assigned which do not oblige (or give the possibility) the intern to gain a deeper understanding of the specifics of the organization’s activities and speciality’s work from different perspectives.

LONG-TERM VOLUNTEERING

Long-term volunteering is a process that lasts from three months to several years. And nowadays, a precise definition of this type of volunteering is being actively sought in the youth field. One also seeks to establish a

two-way relationship between the host organization and the volunteer’s ethical rules. The concept of volunteering in itself means that a person voluntarily provides services to a host organization, the aim of which is improving social and community life. Thus, the majority of society still perceives volunteering as a non-profit activity during which an individual “donates” his/her time and human resources while seeking to help benevolently and free of charge. At the political level, there are more and more discussions and debates about the fact that volunteering is formed as a process of mutual benefit, when the added value is perceived and received not only by the host organization but also by the volunteer. Thus, once volunteering would become a long-term internship that would create a mutual commitment: the volunteer would commit to providing human resources to achieve the goals of the host organization, whereas the host organization would commit to accompany the volunteer through the process of his/her learning, updating training, skills development and to validate his/her acquired competencies. This would be a win-win situation: the host organization would have a motivated volunteer performing the functions that are important to the organization, whereas during his/her long-term volunteering process the volunteer would acquire the tools approved by the organization that are important for his/her personal career. During long-term volunteering, the volunteer would establish a close personal relationship with host organization and would become dependent on it.

SHORT-TERM VOLUNTEERING

Short-term volunteering has the same definition and goals as long-term volunteering. However, in the case of short-term volunteering, the duration of the process and the volunteer’s role in the organization are clearly defined. This is usually a process that lasts from a few days to two–three months, during which the volunteer performs the same action, for example, nurse the people, takes care of animals, supports the event’s organizational team, performs administrative tasks, and the like. In contrast to long-term volunteering, short-term volunteering does not create such a close personal relationship with the organization. A young person feels a stronger connection with the idea itself that the organization is propagating and with ambitions, in the implementation of which he/she wishes to participate.

ONE-OFF MEETING WITH AN EXPERT

In order to help a young person to learn more about the field of activity that interests him/her in the shortest possible time, one of the best solutions is to organize a meeting with an expert in that field, who would answer all the questions that arise, dispel prejudices and illusions, help foresee the most effective next steps, help develop the skills needed to achieve the goals, and help strengthen them by linking the future to the chosen field. This form of acquaintance with professions is ideal for senior pupils, as it provides the opportunity to organize both individual and group meetings and to help young people to get to know several fields of interest simultaneously in a short period of time without committing to longer employment and cooperation relations.

MEETINGS WITH AN EXPERT FOR MENTORING PURPOSES

This form of practice, when one gets familiar with the profession and activity of his/her interest, differs from the aforementioned one-off meeting with an expert because, unlike a one-off meeting with an expert, the mentoring process requires a commitment to collaborate. The optimal mentoring period ranges from one month to one year. It includes regular meetings of the mentoring process – in the beginning of the process, when goals are set, consultations take place, in the middle of the process one thinks over achievements and challenges, and in the end of the mentoring cycle, the person himself evaluates the results achieved. In this case, unlike long-term or shortterm internships, the mentor is not related or not necessarily related to direct cooperation relations with the young person, whom he/she patronizes, in his/her workplace. A mentor can accompany a young person during his/her learning process, when he/she chooses an area of interest, but this process usually takes place in an organization unrelated to the mentor’s employment relations.

JOB SHADOWING

It is such form of internship when a young person learns from direct experience – by observing the organization’s work processes that interest him. It is a form of internship that is the least binding on both the young person and the person accompanying him/her (the employee of the organization), because the employee of the organization just needs to continue to perform his/her tasks by sharing them with a young person who does the job shadowing, id est, who is next to the employee and observes everything. Due to the specificity of its process and the limitations of its functions, it does not make sense for this form of internship to last for more than one to three weeks.

KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION’S LEADER’S LIFESTYLE, GAINED DURING AN INTERNSHIP IN AN ASSISTANT POSITION

A young person who is prone to leadership, idea generation and entrepreneurship may want to get a closer look at the lifestyle of the leader of an organization or of the leader of a particular project that is directly related to his/her accomplishments and work. In this case, particular attention is paid to the daily habits, work style, specifics of team management of a particular personality. Attention may also be paid to this personality’s hobbies, philosophy of life and areas of learning. The best way to do this is to become an assistant of the leader who interests you, taking over certain entrusted daily work tasks, while at the same time gaining the privilege of spending some time with the leader of the organization during his/her work, leisure, learning time. In this case, a closer personal relationship is created than during the mentoring process, the impact is also much stronger, as the young person not only takes over the knowledge, insights and skills related to the profession, but also has the possibility to get to know more closely the personal factors and habits that determined the success of the personality that interests him/her.

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT IN THE FIELD OF INTEREST

If a young person is with clearly expressed leadership qualities and an idea-generating talent, it is worth giving him/ her the opportunity to create a personal project in his/her chosen field of interest. Such project can be developed during the usual short-term or long-term internship, as well as while volunteering, or in an open youth centre and/or space with the participation of a youth worker. Being next to a young person when he/she is implementing his/her personal project, assistance in gathering other young people around this idea and while implementing initiatives during the learning process will give a young person an invaluable experience in getting to know himself/herself as a leader as well as in getting to know his/her own work style and nuances of personal charisma. A project or an initiative can be both short-term, such as a multi-hour event, a public campaign, and the like, and long-term, such as development and implementation of an organization’s communication strategy, writing and implementation of a project, and the like.

INTERNSHIP IN PARTICIPATING IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF ONE SPECIFIC PROJECT OF INTEREST FROM THE BEGINNING TILL THE END

This form of internship can be useful for young people whose leadership qualities manifest as good executors and resources explorers. Through this form of internship, they gain the possibility to have a look at all parts of an ongoing project with clearly defined start and end time frames. This form of internship can be implemented by applying job shadowing principle. However, there will undoubtedly be significantly more benefits for both parties if such participation takes place during long-term and/or short-term internships (volunteering), when young person is involved in project processes and actively participates in them as a team member.