Two years ago, the Massachusetts Department of Health (Mass DPH) launched a new internship program offering paid experiential learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.

“It’s an exciting way for students to get involved in public health and help meet the needs of communities,” said Christine Beluk, manager of the Mass DPH Academic Health Department, which oversees the program. About 600 students applied last year. “It’s very competitive,” she said.

Internship programs benefit both students and health departments. Students gain experience, build skills, and explore public health roles. They also form relationships with professionals and mentors. Perhaps most importantly, internships help students determine if a public health career is right for them.

For health departments, qualified interns help increase program team capacity. They also bring in fresh perspectives and can help develop a potential workforce pipeline.

Building a high-quality internship program requires a thoughtful approach that prioritizes the student experience. Beluk, whose professional background is in higher education, leaned on this knowledge base when launching the new program.

“It’s important to continually ask, ‘How can we support students in participating in a meaningful internship?’” she said.

A firm foundation

The Mass DPH Academic Health Department works closely with the state’s many academic institutions. The department is also part of a consortium of colleges and universities with established public health programs. Internship opportunities are shared with all academic institutions, Beluk said.

“Our department is embedded in the university system, and we value our relationships with our colleges and universities,” she said. “We have so many incredible institutions, research, and faculty nearby.”

Beluk joined Mass DPH two years ago as the first person to have a formal role in the Academic Health Department, which now has two full-time staff members. Her immediate focus was evaluating the existing internship program, formalizing processes, and building transparency.

“There have always been interns at DPH,” she said. “We encourage staff to connect with us so we can promote their specific needs to schools and help with paperwork and training.”

The Mass DPH Bureau of Infectious Disease and Laboratory Sciences oversees a local public health internship program. That program matches students with paid local summer internships in program areas like environmental health and communicable disease case investigation. “The Academic Health Department doesn’t oversee that program, but we help promote it to schools,” Beluk said.

To pay or not to pay?

Generally, health department internship programs can be structured in different ways. Some programs offer experience only, others offer academic credit or practicum experience, and some offer payment. Depending on the academic institution, some interns may earn both academic credit and a paycheck.

When creating its new Paid Internship Program, Mass DPH applied an equity lens, according to Beluk.

“We want to ensure that students who are interested in public service can apply for these opportunities and sustain themselves while working in public health,” she said. “Paid internship programs are important when it comes to equity. When you only offer unpaid internships, there are many people who can’t apply.”

Mass DPH uses Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) funding for its Paid Internship Program. Undergraduates in the program earn $20 per hour, while graduate students earn a $25 hourly rate. Students are paid through the state-approved contracted temporary agency and may also receive academic credit if their school’s internship policy allows both payment and credit. Interns must check with their school to confirm, Beluk said.

“PHIG funding has allowed Massachusetts to connect internship opportunities to our roots of racial equity and health equity and to make sure our workforce is reflective of the people that live in Massachusetts,” Beluk said. “You can’t have an equitable program for student experience if it isn’t focused on ensuring that people are getting compensated for the work they’re doing.”

Building a meaningful experience

Mass DPH created a searchable database of projects on its Paid Internship Program webpage to help connect students with the type of experience they seek. While students aren’t required to study public health to apply, they’re encouraged to review project descriptions and apply for roles for which they have relevant skills and education.

Beluk held many information sessions and meetings with staff members as the Paid Internship Program developed. “We spent a lot of time talking about the experience we were hoping to create,” she said. “We talked about making sure work aligns to a project, how to develop independence in an intern, and mentorship. Defining the role helps create a valuable experience.”

Standardizing the hiring process

Building new processes within a health department can be challenging, especially in larger organizations or in those where processes are entrenched. “Creating systems at Mass DPH to make the application process transparent was a huge win,” Beluk said. An accessible application process is critical to the department’s equity work, she said.

Preceptors do their own hiring for each internship, following a clear process created by Beluk’s team. Preceptors don’t review cover letters, resumes, student names, or which institution students attend. Instead, they initially evaluate answers students provide to a set of questions and score those answers using a standardized rubric.

“It’s not totally blind hiring, but we think it’s a valuable way to support the hiring process,” Beluk said. “We talk with preceptors about student traits and how to think about skills they might need when talking to a candidate.”

Setting up for success

Confidentiality and data protection are critical to Mass DPH’s work, according to Beluk. Knowing that interns would need to access specific data for their projects, she suggested each intern be assigned a department laptop. “I was told, ‘I don’t think we can do that,’” she said.

But after some process exploration and interdepartmental relationship-building, Beluk prevailed. Interns in the Paid Internship Program are now assigned department laptops, and an internal equipment assignment process is in place, which helps avoid delays. “Systems and processes are valuable when you’re creating an internship program,” she said. “It’s also important to build relationships internally to help ensure students have a positive experience, and to make sure we’re supporting people who are new to this space.”

Building a pathway to public health

One of the most important goals of the Mass DPH Paid Internship Program is cultivating the next generation of public health professionals, Beluk said. “We want to create pathways for people who are interested in going into public health service,” she said. “This program helps students see what public health is about.”

Yet it’s not only students who benefit from public health internship programs. “Opportunities to mentor students and showcase their profession to the next generation have a profound effect on health department staff,” Beluk said.

Internship Program Checklist

If you’d like to build or redesign an internship program in your department, keep these steps in mind:

  • Establish internal processes. Create guidelines for administrative tasks and ensure all interns have access to technology and other tools they’ll need on day one.
  • Start with onboarding. Orientations for interns provide opportunities to share workplace expectations, professionalism guidelines, and health department policies.
  • Set administrative expectations. Put interns in charge of forms and reporting required by their academic institution. Create clear guidelines so interns understand their role in managing internship requirements.
  • Create communication guidelines. Encourage supervisors to talk with interns about how they want to communicate. Talk through communication styles, frequency expectations, and preferred methods, such as email, messaging platforms, phone calls, or texts.
  • Encourage independence. Create a clear scope of work and make sure interns can accomplish tasks on their own at least some of the time to decrease hands-on management burdens for supervisors.
  • Add flexibility. Offer flexible work schedules when possible to make internships accessible to more students.
  • Remember to mentor. Talk to interns about their professional development goals. Whenever possible, include interns in opportunities like lunch and learns. Encourage reaching out to professional staff for informational interviews and informal conversation.
  • Showcase achievements. Create opportunities for interns to demonstrate the work they’ve done and how it’s helped the department. Poster presentations, student expos, and webinars are great ways to highlight intern work.
  • Ask for feedback. Post-internship surveys of both students and supervisors can help identify what worked, what didn’t, and where opportunities for improvement exist.