In its third year, NAF Future Ready Labs will partner with local businesses to provide internships to high school students
(December 21, 2018 – New York, NY) NAF is thrilled to announce the launch of locally-sponsored NAF Future Ready Labs, a collaboration between NAF, business partners, and academy and district representatives to offer students an internship experience with an innovative and comprehensive structure. This program provides high school students an opportunity to put their education into practice in a unique work environment with support from local business partners. In this iteration of the program, local businesses will partner with their NAF academy advisory boards to develop a strong local talent pipeline.
NAF advisory boards provide an essential bridge between schools and the workplace. Business professionals and community leaders volunteer on local advisory boards to play an active role in developing their future workforce by shaping talent in high school. Locally-sponsored NAF Future Ready Labs provide another opportunity for advisory board members to support high-quality paid internships for NAF students. Through a multi-week experience, 20-25 student interns will complete a project of value for the business sponsors in a collaborative team-based environment, participate in skill-building workshops, and connect with professionals who serve as mentors.
The NAF Future Ready Lab is an innovative internship concept designed to increase the quantity of meaningful paid internship experiences available for students to participate and prepare for future careers. In its pilot phase, NAF Future Ready Lab served 55 students across three program sites. In 2018, the number of labs tripled. This summer, NAF Future Ready Labs are expected to experience another exponential growth with 20 to 25 sites across the country.
For the first two years of the program, NAF partnered with the following companies to bring Future Ready Labs to students across the country: Capital One, KPMG, Optum, Verizon, Oath, Mastercard, and World Wide Technology (WWT). This year, NAF will be piloting its Future Ready Lab tools, resources, and supports with a select group of participants across the country. These four teams were selected through a rigorous application process to identify strong goal-oriented school districts and advisory board teams to plan and implement meaningful internship programs for their communities’ high school students. School districts and their business advisory board members in the following communities were chosen to participate:
- Harford County, Maryland
- Cabarrus County, North Carolina
- Detroit, Michigan
- Orange County, Florida
“We are excited to offer this unique opportunity that will benefit students, as well as local businesses and the communities they serve,” said Brooke Rice, Senior Director of Future Ready Labs at NAF. “Businesses will see their return on investment immediately while actively shaping their future workforce.”
About NAF:
NAF is a national network of education, business, and community leaders who work together to ensure that high school students are college, career, and future ready.
NAF works with high need communities to transform the high school experience through an educational design that includes industry-specific curricula, work-based learning experiences, and relationships with business professionals, culminating in a paid internship. NAF academies fit within and enhance school systems, allowing NAF to become an integral part of a plan for higher achievement at a low cost. NAF academies focus on one of five career themes: finance, hospitality & tourism, information technology, engineering, and health sciences. During the 2017-18 school year, more than 100,000 students attended 644 NAF academies across 36 states, including DC and the US Virgin Islands. In 2017, NAF academies reported 97% of seniors graduated with 90% of graduates with post-secondary intentions. For more information, please visit.