Pathways to Healing Partnership focuses on helping people who have experienced difficulties like poverty, homelessness, physical health and mental health and substance use challenges, abuse, neglect and exposure to domestic violence.
“We are very fortunate to have a program of this caliber locally,” said human service instructor Kerri Lowey MacKenzie. “Our department feels grateful to be able to partner with them, to learn more and engage in more preventative work, which is not always adequately funded. It enhances students learning to have field experts in the classroom; sharing their knowledge. The subjects that they cover are really at the forefront of social work practice right now.”
Registered clinical counsellor Andrew McKenzie with the Comox Valley Child Development Association worked with students during their practicum to offer round table discussions and experiences.
“Myself and my colleagues go in with a presentation and do a bit of a didactic to talk to the students about scenarios and their questions,” said McKenzie. “We go back and forth about how they deal with the situations they might encounter through the lenses of the work we do and the models we use.”
First-year human services worker student Erika Petrie was one of the students who did her practicum with the Comox Valley Child Development Association.
“When I went into picking practicums in our community, I had a lot of respect for that agency,” said Petrie. “I think the organization has such deep roots in accommodating families and family services in the Comox Valley. Getting to be a part of that as a student and being able to touch a piece of that is amazing.”
Getting to have theses experiences while you are still learning all the academics helps ground you and helps you tailor your skills better, noted Petrie.
“You have a sense of practical skills and you have a sense of how you are will react to people and how they will react to you, so you are far more prepared going into the job.”
Pathways to Healing also explores de-stigmatization of some of the concepts students might have, resolve misunderstandings, and help the unknowns in the workforce.
Every conversation creates mutual benefits for students and professionals during the discussions as students also get the opportunity to bring their experiences from their pasts.
“It gives me a lot of hope for the future to talk to such insightful, open minded, and progressively thinking people who will work in this field,” said McKenzie. “I learn a lot from their questions about where some of the needs are in education and in mental health too. They are some of my favourite parts of my job working with NIC.”
To learn more, visit www.nic.bc.ca/health-human-services.
