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Student Case Managers: a CoP Spotlight
69 Plays7 months ago
This episode our on-air host Rachel Barreca is joined by Hazel Ling, Anh Brown, Andrea Dalimonte, and Dion Fawcett as we explore the topic of Student Case Managers: a CoP Spotlight. We hope that you enjoy and choose to follow along as we release a number of episodes geared towards celebrating our past, present, and future as an organization.
The CACUSS50 Oral History Project is an initiative of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in recognition of our organizations 50 years of engaging student affairs professionals in Canada. The series of podcasts is recorded and produced by: Sean Fast, Adam Kuhn, Nicholas Fast, Rachel Barreca, Stephanie Muehlethaler, Noah Arney, Sally Chen, Estefania Toledo, Paula Jean Broderick, Jennifer Brown, Margaret de Leon, and Becca Gray. This podcast is recorded, produced, and published on the traditional territories of hundreds of Indigenous nations from across the northern half of Turtle Island, also known by its settler-colonial name, Canada. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on this land. For more information on the territories you may reside on, visit: https://native-land.ca/
Music: Expanding the Limits | Performed by Audiorezout & Written by Oleksii Striapchyi | Stock Media provided by Audiorezout / Pond5
Podcast Cover Art by: Ravi Gabble (UTM)
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Transcript
Introduction to Caucus 50 Podcast
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Caucus 50 podcast, part of the Caucus 50 Oral History Project. My name is Rachel Bereka, and I'm your host today.
00:00:28
Speaker
And I'm very excited to be sharing with you some information about our community of practice of student case managers. The Caucus 50 oral history project was something that we started last year in our 50th anniversary year as a chance for us to look back at where we've come from, what we've accomplished, what we've thought about, what we're thinking about in terms of going towards our future.
Focus on Student Case Management
00:00:51
Speaker
And so today we're going to talk all about student case management. Where have we been? Where are we going?
00:00:57
Speaker
And I'm very happy to say that we have four members of that community of practice with us here today. So I'm going to ask you all to introduce yourselves and however you want to introduce yourself as we get
Meet the Case Managers
00:01:12
Speaker
started. I'll start with you, Anne. Thanks, Rachel. I'm Anne Brown and I use she, her pronouns. I work at Western University as a case manager and I've been in this position
00:01:24
Speaker
since it was first created in 2011. And I've been with the caucus community of practice since it originated. I want to say around 2015 ish that we used to be a pretty informal group. And then when the community of practices started with caucus, we decided to put a proposal in to start our own group there. So it was part of that that first group in the early days and still kind of attend regular regular events. Thanks so much, Hazel.
00:01:54
Speaker
Hi Rachel, thank you. My name is Hazel Ling and I use she and her pronouns. I am the case manager at Dalhousie University. I started at Dal in January of 2016 and I was attending the community of practice for case managers as a
00:02:20
Speaker
participant for a number of years once I found out about it. And then I became one of the co chairs in July of 2023. And my other co facilitator co chair is not able to make it today. But we will keep Kathy in our minds today, I'm sure. Andrea. Hi, thanks for having me. My name is Andrea Del Monte.
00:02:49
Speaker
My pronouns are she and her, and I am the manager of student care and support at Wilfrid Laurier University on the Brantford campus. And I have been a case manager now, wait, nine years, something like that. And I seem similar to everyone in this room. I have been a member of the student case manager COP since I started in this role.
00:03:18
Speaker
2016, 2017. And then I was asked to take over as chair at that time. It was just me there for a while for a few years until our next co-presenter here, Dion, decided to join me. And so we ran that COP as co-chairs together for a few years until we passed the baton on. So excited to be here with everyone. Thank you. Speaking of Dion, go ahead.
00:03:45
Speaker
Thanks, Rachel. Hi, folks. For anybody listening, my name is Dion Fawcett. I serve as the case management specialist for student care at Sheridan College here in Ontario. Fancy way of saying I'm a case manager and have been, I think, for the last six, seven years. And like Andrea said, I was the co-chair with her for a few years as we navigated the pandemic and a little before. And I've been connected to the COP since I started in the field.
00:04:15
Speaker
Great, thank you.
Goals and Support of the Community of Practice
00:04:17
Speaker
Well, let's start with some basic information here and talk about what the student case manager's COP is all about. Who is it for and what does it do? What is its purpose? Maybe Hazel, you want to start us off?
00:04:34
Speaker
Okay. All right. So the case manager's COP is for people who are working in a post-secondary institution, so college or university in Canada.
00:04:49
Speaker
And primarily case managers are working with students who identify as being at risk or in distress due to complex needs that don't sort of currently fit into either the existing services that we have in the community or, you know, on our campuses. Any other perspective anyone wants to share in terms of
00:05:20
Speaker
how the COP has functioned for you as a member, Andrea. Yeah, I think he still gave a good sort of summary of what a case manager is and so for reflecting on that in terms of the COP. It's definitely a place for all of us who are doing clinical and non-clinical case management with students to gather and sort of discuss those trends that we're seeing.
00:05:47
Speaker
from year to year with students and their needs and how those change from term to term, depending on what some of the cultural and sort of climate-based inferences are. So it's a great place for all of us to kind of just sort of discuss what we're doing because many of us in the early days and still now are working as a one-person office. Luckily, there's been some improvements in recent years
00:06:16
Speaker
of some of us getting some additional colleagues working on our teams, but really it's one of those areas where oftentimes you're doing the job of many others and coordinating that care for students and working with, you know, an abundance of departments on your campuses and in the community. So it's just a way for us to check in and make sure that we're sort of providing the best care that we can for students.
00:06:41
Speaker
and knowing about what's out there, support-wise, and what other institutions are doing to support students. So I'm hearing some stuff in there around providing collegial connections, providing information, and maybe a little bit of support for the very hard work that you do. Are there any key activities that happen in this COP? Dion, do you want to take that?
Key Activities of the Community
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I think I echo Hazel and Andrea in the sunset. It's really about building community, right, for a group of folks coast to coast who do a very unique, I usually call it boutique level service to our students who are navigating some challenging life circumstances. And I think the group, the COP does a great space of creating some of those opportunities and avenues to connect. And one, I think the
00:07:37
Speaker
The key one for me is Keep Calm and Case Manage On, which is a session the COP hosts on a monthly basis where we come together to talk about a specific topic, bring in experts in a certain space to help coach and provide some tools to better be able to support and serve the population that we work with.
00:08:02
Speaker
I'm curious to know how did it get started up? Case management on our campuses, I'm curious to know, like, has the history of those types of roles mirrored the creation of this community of practice? Or, you know, did it go in a different order? How did how did this all come to be? I can speak to that.
00:08:21
Speaker
a little bit. So in the early days, like the post-secondary case management positions are fairly new compared to lots of other offices on campus. And so when I first started in 2011, for example, there were only three case managers across Canada. There was myself at Western, there was a case manager at UBC, and then one at University of Saskatchewan, I think.
00:08:43
Speaker
And so at that point, it was really hard to kind of build that community and make those connections. A lot of my professional development and kind of networking was more so in the US with some of the groups that were a little bit more established there. I think they had started with the case management positions a little bit before we did here in Canada. So I was working with groups like the Higher Education Case Manager Association and NASPA and NABITA in the States. But as more and more institutions here in Canada were starting to develop these roles,
00:09:14
Speaker
We started to just kind of informally connect with one another. There were lots of phone calls. This is pre-Zoom. That would have been really helpful at that time. But we'd have large conference calls. They started connecting everyone via email. We had big email list serves where people could ask questions. I think because the roles were so new that people had a lot of questions about how do you develop this role? What are the policies? What are the protocols? What are some forum templates?
00:09:41
Speaker
How are we documenting? How are we maintaining confidentiality? So lots of places just trying to email around asking those questions where we could share the information and the practices that we've all kind of started doing and learn from one another that way. And then in 2015, when caucus was developing the community of practices, that became a more formalized way that we could come together and do more together rather than just email back and forth.
00:10:12
Speaker
And what were some of the early conversations about, I hear some stuff in there around privacy of information and just even keeping track of information, but were there issues that were in the early days of the COP and even in the existence of these roles on our campuses in Canada? What were you talking about?
00:10:35
Speaker
I think a lot of those conversations we're still navigating. I think even, you know, we're over a decade later and I think we're still constantly asking the questions around privacy and confidentiality and how do we maintain that? How do we work with our campus and our community partners while maintaining the confidentiality of our students? I think we've come a long way in developing policies around that and making sure that we have
00:10:58
Speaker
clear policies that students are aware of, but I think almost every year we have questions that come up around confidentiality.
Current Challenges: Post-Pandemic Needs
00:11:06
Speaker
I think it's something we continue to navigate. Right. So these days, if I was to say to each one of you, what are some of the big trends that you're seeing in your work on your campus? Or what are some of the themes that you're encountering? What would they be? And anyone can start this.
00:11:27
Speaker
I'm happy to start, it's Andrea. I think we're seeing a post-pandemic, a lot of, can we still be in post-pandemic? Can we still refer to ourselves in that place? I don't know. In recent years, definitely financial, housing and food insecurity, I would say are our top three. And they all go hand in hand as well. And so those three pieces are impacting academic success,
00:11:55
Speaker
They're impacting social connection. And so the really interesting and I think beneficial part of being a case manager in some institutions is being able to bear witness to those trends and then create programming to support those needs of students. So I've been very fortunate to be able to identify some of those as needs and create food security programming through free breakfast programs.
00:12:24
Speaker
creating a free store on our campus where students can shop free household used items. You know, so a lot of that has taken time to collect that data and information and many of us use similar sort of student databases that we can collect that information somewhat anonymously and use those numbers to then plead our case for funding and
00:12:54
Speaker
and even just internal support to create these programmings to connect with our students. So yeah, for me, that would be our top three. And I think that the housing piece is still a work in progress. Many of them are, but that's definitely the most challenging at this point in time. I think the play off Andrew's piece is, I think a trend that I've seen as our students continue to bring more complex and diverse lives to campus.
00:13:24
Speaker
Right. It's not straight out of high school anymore. It's some mature learners who have dependents and families, which have really added some layers to this complex situation that we navigate. And I think pre-pandemic, I don't know about other folks, but we work with students maybe for one to two weeks, maybe a little or a semester. Now, post-pandemic, we're working with students for
00:13:51
Speaker
two semesters, six weeks to their whole time here at the institution or their academic journey, just because when one challenge is complete, another challenge pops up. So we're continually navigating some pretty choppy and complex waters. And some of those pieces we can't do institutionally, we can't do individually. It's really that community approach and coordinated approach to really trying to support a student beyond our doorstep.
00:14:20
Speaker
beyond our classroom. Anyone else want to add to that Andrea? I was just going to say I think you know we have the benefit, pleasure, privilege of meeting such a diverse group of students and most typically in their most challenging times and so I'd like to think we sort of have a heads up about what our students need, what type of students we have and
00:14:50
Speaker
can guide them in that support piece. And so it can be challenging at times because we're seeing our students, our non-traditional students attending university and colleges that may not have had that chance before. And then it's looking for ways to then connect them with other resources on campus.
00:15:14
Speaker
that again may not traditionally be suited to support students with those sort of unique challenges. So we have such an amazing opportunity to work so closely with our colleagues and build those relationships that I found have been even personally so fulfilling because now I have such an amazing group of colleagues here at Laurier and we work so well together and with the understanding that the student is the main reason and the main
00:15:44
Speaker
The main reason we're all here, we all have jobs. And so it's a good reminder to like circle back to that, right? To, you know, that they're why we're here. And so our pretty much our only purpose is to ensure that we retain those students, we support those students from beginning to end. Hazel, what's on your mind when you think about what you're dealing with these days?
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think I echo all of the same things and concerns that Andrea and Dionne have talked about. And I think part of the, like a really good thing about the COP is that
00:16:23
Speaker
As case managers, like Andrea said, you know, we're often a one person office or a small team and you don't get to meet people very often who are doing the same job as you or understand like what you do. And you know, it's like kindred spirit, right? Like you get to talk to someone and you're like, oh, I don't have to start in my conversation with a 10 minute explanation about what a case manager at a university does, which is even on my own campus.
00:16:52
Speaker
I'm still doing that after eight years or however long I've been here. I'm still trying to tell people what it is that I do, who they should refer me to, who I can help best, all of those things. And clarifying all the time, I'm not a counselor, I'm not providing therapy.
00:17:10
Speaker
you know, so those like explaining that all the time and then I love it when I meet other case managers within the COP or at the conference or you know if I went to HECMA which is the Higher Education Case Managers Group in the States and then you're like these people understand what I'm talking about you know so I love that and that like community sense of community and just like easier you know I don't need to yet do a whole bunch
00:17:40
Speaker
But yes, I think the same that, you know, the affordable housing and I know that it's the same across Canada from our COP meetings that we talk about it is there's just not a lot of inventory and an affordable inventory in comparison to the rising costs of everything. So I think this year I've had a lot of more students that have been coming to see me that are living
00:18:05
Speaker
in unsafe situations. So whether that's like, you know, their environment, like their physical safety is, you know, it's in disrepair, you know, the window has a, you know, crack in it, nobody's coming to fix it, you know, those kinds of things. And then also like unsafe from like violence, like that kind of safety.
00:18:29
Speaker
in because they don't have options to leave. And so they're putting up with or having to put up with, you know, living with an unsafe roommate or, you know, somebody who's, you know, having there's concerns around violence or they're in an intimate partner relationship that's unsafe. So I have noticed an increase in that this year. Yeah, what about for you, Anne?
00:18:56
Speaker
I would agree that certainly the financial and the housing concerns are ones that I think we've seen significantly grow over the past couple of years. I think we continue to see a lot of students struggling with complex mental health concerns. I think as the hospitals and a lot of our community partners are very busy and aren't always able to provide the same long-term support that perhaps they used to. And they're focusing in on crisis or short-term support.
00:19:25
Speaker
It's leaving some of the students we work with without having the counseling or mental health support they need. And that often ends up falling back to our office because they continue to struggle with their mental health but are not able to access the treatment and the care that they need in that way. And so working with our mental health team and our accessible education team here has been
00:19:47
Speaker
really key in trying to find some options and programs and supports and figuring out how do we best support these students so that they can continue in school and that we're able to accommodate it and meet their needs that way.
Collaboration and Resource Utilization
00:20:01
Speaker
I'm curious to know, given that your work depends so greatly on collaboration with folks across campus and in your communities,
00:20:12
Speaker
What do you want anyone listening to this podcast who does not work in student case management to know about what you need when you get in touch with them or what's important for them to understand about your work? You know, Hazel, you referred to that beautiful feeling of coming to a COP meeting and you don't have to explain your job like you normally do every other day on your campus. Help us understand. What do you want us to know?
00:20:42
Speaker
I can start if you want. I think what I want people to know is that we are a great resource. Case managers are professional problem solvers and chaos coordinators.
00:20:58
Speaker
And, you know, we're really skilled at getting down to the, you know, what is the issue? And, you know, what, what plan like doing an assessment and, you know, what if so, you know, we get people calling us for consultations with that they don't know it's not their job, right, like they're teaching chemistry, you know, so
00:21:20
Speaker
That's their area of expertise. So this is our area of expertise, and it really is that problem solving, that practical problem solving. But at the same time, making sure that the student feels heard and seen and humanizing and adding compassion to the story, I think, or to the response that I think is really important.
00:21:44
Speaker
But yeah, just, you know, we can make your job easier. I think is, you know, what I could say is that you don't need to, you know, worry about, you know, the student who's maybe sending you emails saying like, I couldn't get my assignment done or, you know, because I have my housing situation or I'm living in my car or I'm living in a tent or, you know, whatever is just refer them to me and I will get them sorted out. And then you can do whatever your job is.
00:22:14
Speaker
Andrea? I think, yeah, Hazel got it spot on there, I think. I'd like to think that we're seen in that capacity by our colleagues as sort of the problem solvers, and I think many of us have worked over the years to create those connections with our colleagues to ensure that they do know that that's the purpose of our role. Because when students are struggling, it's often not just in one area, and so they do need
00:22:44
Speaker
that additional support of someone else who can say, okay, let's break it down. Let's see what's, let's prioritize sort of the needs and then we'll go step by step. And that can be really challenging for students, for any of us when we're faced with any number of sort of concerns that are impacting each other all at once. So, I find we tend to be very organized folks and, you know, we work in a way that puts the student first and they sort of drive the bus in how,
00:23:14
Speaker
and how they want sort of that support piece to look like. So in terms of what we want other folks to know about our work is really that we're there to support the student in whatever capacity that they need. And that often results in other colleagues not having to take on that piece because it can be overwhelming. It can be challenging, especially when that's not something that's in their wheelhouse. And the expectation is not for others to do that. It's for our piece.
00:23:45
Speaker
And also I think too is knowing that we are also not the specialists in particular areas. I think we know a little bit about a lot. And so we know best when to refer on. And so that's something that's really important. So that trust obviously has to be built amongst ourselves and our colleagues. But, you know, great ways of doing that. And many of us have these at our institutions as, you know, those public care reports where we
00:24:12
Speaker
we coach and provide guidance on how to refer a student to us for support and what that process looks like and how the student is involved and how it's from a supportive lens and not any other sort of capacity. So a part of that is us getting out there and meeting with our colleagues and presenting them with the information about what we do and how we do it and also doing that with students. So it's not a secret, right? It's not a secretive process. It's a process that we want everyone to be aware of so that students
00:24:41
Speaker
faculty and staff all know that we're here to do that work within for the student and then hand it off to them, to the students to carry on and do the next steps for themselves once they feel like they're in a position to do so. So that's another important piece is knowing that we're not holding their hands. We are just providing them that guidance and that push and then the student takes it from there. I couldn't have said it better myself, so I echo everything Hazel and Andrew had said.
00:25:10
Speaker
But one of the things that we're so friendly, Dionne, is this why we're friends? I think one of the pieces that comes to my mind when we talk about case management is knowing that resources are different at all of our institutions. And there are a few institutions that have the lucky kind of option of having dedicated case managers. But some live in, you know, as other duties as assigned or part of another portfolio.
00:25:38
Speaker
Typically that falls with conduct or counseling. So knowing that if you don't know a case manager on your campus, they live there somewhere. We tend to be the best known secret until you know us. So recognizing that resources is definitely a piece coast to coast and kind of where institutions are located. But yeah, we're worth our money in gold. I might be biased.
00:26:03
Speaker
But I definitely kind of a great resource to help break down those silos and know that you don't have to do it alone because what our students are challenged with isn't a one person kind of navigating component anymore.
00:26:18
Speaker
In fact, please don't try to do it by yourself is what I understand from my student case management colleagues on my campus. I should have mentioned I work at Toronto Metropolitan University. It's probably a good thing to acknowledge as well. Yeah, please don't try to do it by yourself. I love that idea too that it's a community approach to this care, right? It is truly community care. Yeah.
00:26:42
Speaker
I love the description of being professional problem solvers and chaos organizers obviously your deep listeners you are very very organized and know how to do good referrals.
00:26:59
Speaker
know how to work with lots of different kinds of people. Um, if there was a training curriculum for students, case managers, what would you put in it? What would be like, you're like, we cannot do without this thing. What a great question. Oh, it's gotta, it's gotta be something to do with like juggling 15 different balls in the air all at once. Um, and like just knowing which one to sort of,
00:27:29
Speaker
go after first. So that's not a formal anything. But I would say, yeah, just I guess the listening piece is so super important because what a student is telling you and what they're not telling you are like two totally different things. So being able to really under if you're meeting a student for the first time, you have no context other to what they're saying and their body language.
00:27:55
Speaker
So I think it's being able to read between the lines a little bit and guide your questioning in a way that allows a student to feel comfortable to open up about other things that are going on, right? So they might be coming into you as a referral from a faculty member because they have not been attending classes or haven't been handing in assignments. So, you know, it's looking at, let's start with what we know and let's sort of provide a safe space for students to feel comfortable in sharing a little bit more information, but also letting them know they also don't have to share everything
00:28:24
Speaker
that's going on with them. That's kind of one of the things that I preface is feel free to talk about whatever you want to talk about and through your comfortability and the guiding of questions, typically you get to the root of the problem. It may take a couple of times connecting or you being able to sort of support that faculty piece, that academic piece, and then they know, okay, this is someone that I can work with and they come back and it ends up being a little bit more to the story. So really it's building connection, sussing out those sort of
00:28:55
Speaker
verbal and nonverbal cues and then allowing them to the student to just really guide where you want that connection and support to go.
Building Relationships and Emphasizing Equity
00:29:07
Speaker
Anne, what would be on your list of things?
00:29:10
Speaker
I was just going to echo what Andrea said. I think that relationship and that ability to build rapport and quickly build connections sometimes in really stressful and difficult situations is key to case management. And I think we build those relationships both with the students that we're working with, but also our campus and our community partners and being able to build the trust and the relationships with them so that they know when we're referring a student, there's some significant need there. There's some urgency.
00:29:39
Speaker
kind of an assessment we've already done and we've kind of identified that they need that support. And so I think kind of the relationships we build with everyone are key to the work that we do. Do you honor Hazel? Anything you'd add?
00:29:55
Speaker
I'll go first. I'm trying to let the other person go. I echo what Anne said as well about relationships and building those relationships with your partners, your campus partners. I think, yeah, that was the first thing that came to my mind is that relationships
00:30:16
Speaker
matter and that I couldn't do my job without having those good relationships and good connections around campus and having some comfort with those relationships because if I have a student who's you know there's an urgency to the matter
00:30:36
Speaker
then it's great if I could just call like Dion and Dion and I have already worked together and know each other. And so I might not say, oh, hi, Dion, you know, it's Hazel from this office. And how are you today? And, you know, I might just say, Dion, like, I need this. And, you know, Dion wouldn't think like, oh, that's a rude person, you know, that Dion would be like, well, that's not normally how Hazel speaks with me. So, you know, there must be some urgency here. And so I better just get right down to business and like give her the information that she wants.
00:31:05
Speaker
And so I think that, you know, that takes a lot of time. And, you know, I often joke during the pandemic that, you know, it's hard to be a social worker when you can't like be social and to, you know, make those connections with people and maintain them over, you know, because it takes a lot of time and a lot of energy.
00:31:26
Speaker
to do that and I think what was really helpful to me as well kind of that goes along with that when I first started was learning what other people's jobs were and you know learning about my resources and being really clear although like Andrea said is that you're not an expert on it but knowing like what are the parameters of what an academic advisor can do and can't do? What are the parameters of what an accessibility advisor can do and can't do?
00:31:53
Speaker
So, you know, really knowing that, like, what does a residence life manager do? Like, what does their job entail? So that I'm referring to the right people and I'm promising the right kind of help for the student. It seems to me this is why a community of practice is so important is because if you need to build relationships with colleagues that are across a very large country and be able to make that quick
00:32:18
Speaker
and dirty phone call of like, ah, help. The COP can really contribute to that community building and the relationship building as well. Absolutely. I was just going to say, I'm sure a lot of us have done that as well. I know for sure I've reached out to colleagues at all different institutions across the country, whether it's to ask if they have a specific resource or is this something, a challenge that you've encountered with a student before because this is new to me and I need somebody to bounce this off of.
00:32:47
Speaker
So it's so beneficial for that piece for sure. You have each other's backs. Yeah. That's it. So let's talk about the future. Let's talk a little bit about the future of this community of practice. What's coming up on the horizon for the student case manager's COP?
00:33:04
Speaker
So I guess I have to start. I know what the agenda items are that are coming up. Okay, so February's meeting, the end of February, we are going to talk about balancing confidentiality and privacy with case management, because like Anne pointed out, that's, that's an ongoing challenge and
00:33:25
Speaker
So I think it might have been Dion actually and Andrea that did a survey in the summer to ask the members of the community of practice what areas they were interested in for this upcoming academic year. And so Kathy and I took that list and we got some numbers and we picked like their top six topics or whatever. And so confidentiality was definitely on there.
00:33:53
Speaker
March meeting, the stay keep calm and case manage on is going to be working and supporting with international students. April's meeting is a topic is some like overview very high light kind of level of what is trauma informed care and how does that
00:34:18
Speaker
What do we need to know about that from a case manager's point of view? And then we are looking at May for talking about how like best practices for responding to a critical incident on campus like the student death. And so those were kind of the top items or topics that people were asking about. And so that's how we have it set so far.
00:34:47
Speaker
I'm curious to know earlier you talked about the increasingly diverse students that we have on our campus and the diverse needs.
00:34:58
Speaker
just hit my microphone there, that's super professional. I'm Italian, I talk with my hands. But the diverse students and the diverse needs that they bring to our campuses and to their educational experiences and therefore sometimes into your offices. In terms of the work that the COP is doing and the work that the members of the COP are doing, how does
00:35:22
Speaker
that kind of diversity, equity, inclusion and decolonization lens play out in terms of the work that you're doing and the work that the COP needs to be doing. I know that's a big question. I think I can speak to this, but I can start anyway. I think, and I was going to mention this before when we were on a different topic, but part of
00:35:50
Speaker
I feel a part of our role is to immerse ourselves in everything that's going on on campus. So despite how large a caseload we have and how many students we're meeting with or supporting, like it's super important to attend those events. Go to our different spaces on campus, whether that's your EDI space or your indigenous center or working over, you know, stopping by our mental health services.
00:36:21
Speaker
and attending some of those events that are there, it's really important to meet students where they're at. And so instead of always having them come to us, having myself or my colleagues go to those events and run those events and programming so that you're meeting students in a different space that's maybe more comfortable to them. And so I would say that's one part of it is move to where the need is
00:36:51
Speaker
be experiencing some of those other areas on campus that are doing phenomenal work and know a lot of things that we may not know. So I would say that's one piece that's super beneficial. So, you know, spreading ourselves thin, but we all do it. All of us do it in post-secondary. We're all trying to cover all of our bases and do all that work. But for me, I would say that's something that I try and continue to keep up. Yeah, that's great. Other thoughts?
00:37:22
Speaker
I think for me, a bit of connecting with the EDI work is also learning from our students. The students that we work with and acknowledging that we're not the experts in their space and that they are the experts in their own lives. And as much as they learn from us, we learn from them during their critical time or challenging time. We work together and are that co-pilot for them.
00:37:49
Speaker
and keeping, like Andrea said, a pulse on what's going on on campus but also what's happening in the community where our students live, right? How does what happens out there impact campus and how do we collaboratively work together to mitigate some of that impact so that it doesn't impact a student's academic ability or success?
00:38:11
Speaker
That's a great point, which goes back to the ability to listen deeply, and I suppose intercultural competency as well. Hazel, were you going to say something? Yeah, I was just going to say that. It's doing our own work as well of recognizing our own identities and our own privilege and trying to keep ourselves educated in that area of EDIA.
00:38:34
Speaker
and doing our own work, right? Like making sure that we're continually challenging ourselves about our assumptions and biases and working from an anti-oppressive lens and understanding intersectionality and those kinds of things. We are almost at time to wrap up, but I want to make sure that Anne, if you have anything you'd like to add there that you have the chance to.
00:39:01
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with what he's always saying. And to add to that, I think it's doing our own work and also recognizing the power that we're bringing to that relationship with the student and kind of recognizing our own place in that dynamic and identifying that for a lot of students, it might be really hard
00:39:19
Speaker
and difficult reaching out to somebody working for the university. What does that mean to them? What do they, how do they interpret that? What does that look like for them? And could that make it more difficult for them to disclose or share certain information? So recognizing that and sometimes even calling it out in the meeting with the student and identifying that if it seems to be a bit of a barrier and doing that work is really important.
00:39:44
Speaker
Great. Yeah. It's so important to know how people respond to authority. And even if you don't see yourself as an authority figure, you work for an institution and carry authority automatically so that I'm sure it can be challenging in creating helping relationships with some folks, with many folks actually, especially people who are in crisis, right? I don't have to tell you all that. So I'm going to turn the last question very quickly to Hazel.
00:40:14
Speaker
because you are one of the co-chairs. And I want to honor Kathy Mutis and actually say her name out loud, works at BCIT as your co-chair. What is a way that folks can get involved in this community of practice for student case managers?
00:40:29
Speaker
I would say, you know, sign up and attend the monthly sessions that we have. They can always send us an email through the caucus website and then we can answer.
Joining the Community of Practice
00:40:48
Speaker
We have had some people do that as well. I think that's it. Dion or Andrea or Anne, do you have any other ideas?
00:40:57
Speaker
I would say all those caucus emails that we get, read them because that's where all the information is about upcoming events. And even non-caucus members, you know, I believe they have access to join some of those monthly meetings. And then, you know, understanding that budgets are as they are, if you can't attend a conference, then that's the best way to kind of get connected and learn about what other folks in your field are doing. But also, I'm sure everyone on this call would
00:41:26
Speaker
definitely offer their connection and contact info if folks are interested. You've heard it here first. You can reach out to Anne Brown, Dionne Fawcett, Andrea de la Monte, or Hazel Ling, and of course, Kathy Mutis, if you're interested in getting connected to the Student Case Manager's Community of Practice through caucus. I want to thank all of you so much for your time joining me here today to talk about
00:41:50
Speaker
the great work that you're doing and the work of this community of practice. And I wish you all well. This has been the caucus 50 podcast. My name is Rachel Bereka. I've been happy to host this conversation today. And I hope you tune in to our next episode as well. Thank you.
00:42:26
Speaker
The Caucus 50 Oral History Project is an initiative of the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services in recognition of our organization's 50 years of engaging student affairs professionals in Canada. The series of podcasts is recorded and produced by Sean Fast, Adam Kuehn, Nicholas Fast, Rachel Barreca, Stephanie Mulettoller, Noah Arney, Sally Chen, Estefania Toledo, Paula Jean Broderick, Jennifer Brown, Margaret de Leon,
00:42:56
Speaker
and Becca Gray. Intro and outro music is courtesy of Alexei Stryapji. This podcast is recorded, produced, and published on the traditional territories of hundreds of Indigenous nations from across the northern half of Turtle Island, also known by its settler-colonial name, Canada. We are grateful for the opportunity to live, work, and learn on this land. Miigwetch.