Last week, I met with one of my mentors, Lisa, to discuss how she incorporates workplace info lit into her Student Services department and some of the results of the Student Services Aligment Project.
We discussed how the new student services model supports one of the recommendations from the Ivany Report, to bring people into the workforce who have been traditionally unable to form an attachment to the labour market. Through the Student Services Alignment Project, NSCC is attempting to ensure that the supports are in place to help students experience success in their employment readiness training so that they can begin to form these attachments and enter the labour market. Some of the new initiatives include:
- New roles for student services staff, including identifying a specific advisor for each student.
- The Advising piece now happens right away, to try to help students before they reach crisis points in the term.
- Ability for students to ask for supports and accommodations they need, and to work with a counsellor to develop these supports if they aren’t sure.
- Programs such as Achieve, which help students with life skills.
- Incoming student survey individual follow up for students who identify they would like assistance with or more support in a specific area.
- More support for faculty in helping students with “soft skills” — At Lisa’s campus, a series of instructional sessions have been developed which can be incorporated into the classroom:
my learning journey through LCP 