Become an NCUFY Summer Intern!
We’re looking for interns for Summer 2024! Are you a high school student with an interest in mental health, safe and healthy decision making, and community support? Are you interested in collaborating on exciting projects, learning leadership skills, and supporting your community? Become a New Castle United for Youth Summer Intern! The internship is open to high school students (including rising 9th graders). With two sessions each focusing on a different subject area, there’s a schedule and a topic for everyone!
Potential interns are welcome to apply to one or both summer sessions. Interns who successfully complete a session by logging 15 or more hours and completing assigned tasks will receive internship compensation of $150, or may count their hours towards a Presidential Volunteer Service Award.
Session One
During Session One, interns will have the opportunity to become certified in Teen Mental Health First Aid. This training teaches teens the skills necessary to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges in their friends and peers. This fully in-person course covers the common signs and symptoms of mental health or substance use challenges and crises, addresses the impact of bullying and school violence on mental health, provides a framework for how to open a conversation about mental health with a friend, and explains how to seek help from a responsible, trusted adult. At the completion of the course, interns will receive a certification in Teen Mental Health First Aid from the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. This session will also include opportunities for interns to discuss their experience with the material, how to best support each other and their community, and how to continue to emphasize mental health support in their work with NCUFY.
Session Two
During Session Two, interns will work collectively on planning and publicity for a variety of NCUFY projects and events to take place during fall 2024. These projects include planning for NCUFY involvement at Community Day, the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival, freshman orientation at Greeley, Red Ribbon Week, and more! This session will also provide interns with the opportunity to propose new project ideas for the upcoming year. This session will be conducted in a hybrid format and will be a blend of in-person and zoom meetings, allowing for more schedule flexibility than Session One. In previous years, NCUFY participants have proposed and created projects like the Community Weave, the Horace Greeley High School Survival Guide, a Family Connections cookbook, the Community building blocks, and more! To learn more about NCUFY Youth Led projects, check them out here!
Dates and Details
Session One will run from July 15 through July 26, and will be an entirely in-person experience. Interns will be required to complete a self-directed pre-course training and attend all in-person meetings in order to receive their Mental Health First Aid certification. Due to the nature of this session’s topics, we will have space for a smaller number of interns, and all applicants will be required to take part in a screening interview session as a part of the application process.
Session Two will run from July 29 through August 10, and will be a hybrid blend of in-person and Zoom meetings. This session will have space for a larger number of interns, and will have a more flexible attendance policy than Session One.
Previous Summer Interns
In previous years, summer interns have worked with Northern Westchester Hospital Center on vaping focus group research, helped the New Castle Police Department plan ways to teach community members about impaired driving, designed an Instagram meme campaign, designed informational materials and other give aways, planned activities for summer concerts, ran “Escape the Vape” activities with middle school summer campers, all while learning leadership skills, helping their community and having fun! For a sense of what our previous interns have done, you can view a presentation or read about some of their projects.
