Working with Your Local CCC
Transcript
00:06Community Adult Learning Programs play an important role
00:09in laddering learners onto the CCIs.
00:12The CALPs are the gateway to the learners,
00:14the foundational learners,
00:16they come to us first because they know us.
00:18They feel comfortable with us.
00:19We're easily accessible in their community.
00:22But they may come with CCI needs like,
00:25"Really, I'd like to get in the trades program
00:27"at Lethbridge College, but how do I do it?"
00:29"I would like my daughter to go to the...
00:34"enroll her in our program at Medicine Hat College,
00:38"but as a parent, I'm not sure how to do that,
00:40"and I'm not sure how to connect my daughter
00:42"to the post secondary system."
00:44So then our job as Community Adult Learning Programs
00:47is to break all the barriers to the CCIs
00:50and to learn about how we get them registered,
00:52how we find funding for them,
00:55what scholarships are available,
00:58get the forms, help them fill out the forms in their own community
01:01and do all the things that we can do here on the ground floor
01:04to get them into the CCI programs and services.
01:09We were very lucky because we have had our partnership
01:12with our CCI for about six years.
01:14And it's a very strong supportive relationship.
01:18We get first-hand information from our local colleges
01:21of what programs are going on,
01:23what programs are offered in our communities,
01:25and support on where we can help the students find funding
01:30or websites that are available for them to go onto.
01:33I made a point of meeting
01:35with the vice president of Lethbridge College
01:37and giving him some examples
01:39of how we can break barriers for learning.
01:42So one of those was we had a young mother come in
01:45that was working at a fast food restaurant
01:49wanted to take the early childhood program at Lethbridge College
01:52but didn't have the means to drive into Lethbridge.
01:55So we registered in distance learning.
01:58Got her all registered and set up,
02:00and she'd been in the program for about two weeks
02:03and on a Friday afternoon came into the office just in tears
02:06with this foolscap paper with all her assignment written out
02:10and it had to be emailed in, but she didn't have an email.
02:13She didn't have a computer.
02:15She didn't know what she was going to do.
02:16So two of our staff took it,
02:18typed it up for her, emailed it off.
02:20She came in the next week, she got 85% on it,
02:23and that's all she needed.
02:24So then we said to her, "We can't do this again.
02:26"We're putting you in a computer course."
02:29So we lent her a laptop computer.
02:32We put her in the computer class.
02:34She took the computer class in the evenings,
02:37used our computer until she could afford her own.
02:40And then the next year she moved to Lethbridge
02:42so she could go to school in person.