Helping others to help themselves
Community Support Worker program focuses on helping the underrepresented
Communities are made up of a variety of people with different needs. This is an important lesson for students of NorQuest College’s new Community Support Worker program.
The program provides training that gives graduates the skills to serve the needs and improve the economic opportunities of three growing and underrepresented communities in the workforce: Aboriginal Peoples, refugees and immigrants, and individuals with disabilities.
However, equally important is to have students peer into the differences of individuals and groups thereby putting themselves into other people’s shoes. Indeed, empathy is a big component of the learning process and a prerequisite to successful professional status.
“The instructor incorporates every student’s life experience into the course,” says student Amanda Rodriguez, 23, noting the diversity of learners she is exposed to in the classroom creates even more tangible lessons. “It makes you assess everything. Things like mistakes that you have made, and how you can change those mistakes so you can help others.”
Rodriguez is one of 22 pioneering students who are being charged to ask the tough questions and to open their minds. They aren’t training to be social workers and they aren’t training to be phycologists; they are training to be mentors who empower others to achieve their goals.
The approach of instructor Alexandru Caldararu is, in Rodriquez’s words, “mind blowing” and has left a profound effect on her already open minded personality.
“There are so many things we don’t understand about other people who go through all sorts of things. And this course helps you want to be that one person who helps make a difference in someone’s life.”
Graduates of the nine-month certificate program will look to community service providers for employment – places like Edmonton’s Bissell Centre, the community advocacy group E4C or Catholic Social Services.
The instructor incorporates every student’s life experience into the course. It makes you assess everything. This course helps you want to be that one person who helps make a difference in someone’s life.