Revised program provides the skills to be more active participants in life
Revised program provides the skills to be more active participants in life.
Photo: CC BY 2.0 via Flickr user Eric James Sarmiento
“I never thought post-secondary education was an option,” said Leslie Cringan. “With invisible disabilities, there are so many unseen barriers.”
A recent policy paper by the Ontario Human Rights Commission agrees with this assessment, stating that “people with mental health disabilities or addictions, have faced considerable and longstanding discrimination, stigmatization and social exclusion in Canada.”
George Brown continues to collaborate with the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities and the Ministry of Health to change this situation.
The college has created a three semester program that leads to an Ontario college certificate. The program is called “transitions to post-secondary education (TPE),” which is a revised certificate program formerly known as the redirection through education (RTE) program.
The program’s curriculum of post-secondary credits are designed to create space for its students within the college system that are not limited or segregated.
Cringan calls the program a “tool kit” which helps her to set herself up for success by offering a set of tools and directions which assist her, and other students, in becoming active and productive participants in life.
Running for three semesters, it has intakes in January, May and September and has classes from all three semesters at once.
Since the curriculum was revised last year, 19 students have graduated and walked across a convocation stage.
According to the TPE information pamphlet, this program provides individuals who identify their mental health or addiction challenges, as barriers to further education and/or employment, with the opportunity to access new pathways to academic and employment success.
However, the goal of the program is deeper than that.
Alex Irwin, director of GBC’s school of immigrant and transitional education explains that, at the heart of this program’s’ philosophy is social inclusion. Its ultimate goal is to allow people like Cringan to re-frame their relationship with the world by helping them to re-engage with society while also helping some students to engage with society for the first time.
“Many students in the program have experienced a great deal of hardship,” said Irwin. “The program attempts to provide a space in which people can explore how they can move forward in their lives, both academically and personally.”
Although it takes bits and pieces from RTE and Four You, two previous programs for people with mental health and addiction challenges, this newly revised program is different.
The key difference between the old programs and this revised one is that the TPE program is comprised of courses that can be used towards a transferable credit. It includes art-oriented courses such as writing and creative exploration.
“I love the changes to the program,” says Cringan, calling it “holistic.” She adds that TPE “works in a manner so that we learn to recognize what we have been conditioned to see as barriers, for example that mental health and addictions are not.”
Both Irwin and Jaswant Bajwa-Kaur, the academic co-ordinator of the program, see the recently released Ontario Human Rights Code policy paper on preventing discrimination based on mental health disabilities and addictions as a ground-breaking step in the right direction to reduce stigma.
They add that while this document validates the experience of so many people in Ontario, for the people who work on the TPE program, this policy paper supports what they already do.
Students who are interested in this program can contact Sabita Trotter, Support services co-ordinator, school of immigrant and transitional education at strotter@georgebrown.ca or by phone at 416-415-5000 extension 3218.
