Housing is an essential right, and the dedicated people that work in homeless shelters are helping secure that right for Toronto’s most vulnerable. Canada’s largest city has expanded its shelter facilities, and with that comes a need for more staff. That’s why Centennial College has launched its new online micro-credential, the Homeless Shelter Worker Certificate. It’s a continuing education course that gives participants a very high-level, but Toronto-specific, look at the shelter system as taught by instructors with experience within it. The course is designed to get you a career on the front lines, or enhance the career you have. Here’s what two of the instructors, Ulli Groppler and Carla O’Brien, have to say about it.
A call for help
The Homeless Shelter Worker Certificate micro-credential was created in collaboration with the City of Toronto to fill a need for reliable employees.
“In 2018, the City of Toronto and Centennial College connected,” Ulli says. “The City had organized focus groups with managers who work in the shelter system, and they asked about what kind of staffing are we looking for, what kind of qualifications, what kind of training and so on. And out of that came the course.”
The course’s curriculum, meanwhile, is heavily based around the book Working with Homeless and Vulnerable People, by Jeanette Wagemakers-Schiff.
“The book is really in tune to what managers were saying they wanted staff to have at least the basic knowledge of,” Carla says.
Is this course for you?
“What makes this unique is that this is a course you can take within 12 weeks,” Carla says. “It will give you a general overlook, and knowledge of what to expect and what you need to know to work in the shelter system. It's for that person who doesn't want to go back to school for two years.”
“The course is really for anyone who's interested in working in the homeless shelter system in Toronto, or Ontario as a whole,” Carla says. “Someone who is looking to get into this field, or who may be currently working in the field, looking to upgrade.”
“Or someone who has lived experience,” Carla continues, referring to former residents of a shelter. “That's another thing from the focus groups: they wanted people who had lived experience to have an opportunity to apply for jobs.”
What you’ll learn in the course
“Students can learn a little bit about diverse populations in Toronto and across Ontario,” Carla says about what she and Ulli teach. “They learn about what it means to be precariously housed, as well as the history of homelessness and the factors that contribute to it. They learn about key core staffing skills that are critical for people who are working with individuals who are experiencing homelessness. They learn how to navigate complex service systems. They build on whatever skill sets they already have in terms of providing support to vulnerable persons. And then learn how their support is critical to promoting change in the life of an individual or family experiencing homelessness.”
“There's also some very basic mental health and addiction information,” Ulli adds. “We also talk about harm reduction, trauma-informed care, trafficking, equity, diversity and inclusion, Toronto shelter standards, confidentiality, and rights and responsibilities of clients, as well as staff.”
Networking with the professionals
“We have quite a few guest speakers that come in,” Carla says. “We get people who are currently working in the field to talk about what it's like to work, from their perspective, on different kinds of topics and dealing with different populations.” Discussions include eviction prevention, trauma care, developmental services offered in Toronto, and street outreach.
But it’s not just the people that they bring into the program that provide valuable experience: Carla and Ulli themselves have a wealth of practical experience that students can draw on.
“Carla and I both have worked or are working in the shelter system,” Ulli says. “So, as instructors, we can answer questions, we can come up with very quick scenarios, we can also respond to students who have lived experience in the shelters.” Some students in the course tend to have their own experience with the shelter system, and can provide surprising educational opportunities.
“When students open up and share their lived experience in the shelter system, or with mental health or addiction, it kind of builds a good student group,” Ulli says. “One person opens up about their experience with addiction, or says they’re still in the in the transitional shelter program, then somebody else will start opening up. And I find that the students, at the end of my class, would say they really learned from their fellow students.”
Getting you working
Since this micro-credential was created to fill a need for workers in the shelter system, there are career opportunities out there for students who take it.
“Actually, there is a very, very huge need right now for staff,” Carla adds. “We have a real staffing crisis when it comes to frontline workers in the shelter system.”
“I've certainly gave some references to the city, and to other organizations, for folks,” Ulli says. “We also offer to do mock interviews with them. They can call us and say, hey, I want to apply for this job position, what should I know?”
“The city wanted to have people applying for client service worker positions,” Carla says. “That's the entry level with the city, and also frontline staff within other shelters. I've also had people who were in housekeeping, looking for a way to transition from that career into frontline, social service kind of career. There's just so many different trajectories that people can get to by taking this course.”
Training tomorrow’s change-makers
There’s another angle to this course, and it’s that both teachers take care to make their students succeed, since they’re training future co-workers.
“We take a lot of our time, and we really hold people's hands through this course,” Carla says. “We work full time, but we give hours outside of the classroom to support students, because we are also aware of the challenges that people sometimes face with accessing certain things. So we are very flexible, wherever on the road our students are at.”
“We want to see them mirror that when they get into the workforce,” Carla says, “because, as managers who hire, we're looking for people who are flexible, who are empathetic, who have key basic knowledge of different concepts, and are able to communicate that and be engaged. We have a vested interest in teaching this course, because we're teaching our potential staff that we will be hiring.”