Between Us/Entre Nous

Fall 2020 Edition

Co-edited by: Paula Desaulniers (Durham College) and Alyse Nishimura (Sheridan College)

OCC Chair’s ReportSubmitted by Maheen Sayal, MSW, RSW, Sheridan College

Happy November Colleagues!

We are all adjusting to very different way of life and my hope is that you all are taking some time to take care of yourselves to avoid burn out. Most of us chose counselling as a profession because we are caring, empathic and compassionate individuals and take pride in helping others. Being on the frontline during a pandemic, I am sure many of you are witnessing the hardships our students are facing on a daily basis which can affect us to an exponential degree. And even though we can’t change our circumstances, we can certainly manage our stress during these challenging times. My hope is that you will reach out to your colleagues within this great community of counsellors if you feel overwhelmed and lend a helping hand if someone reaches out to you.

As difficult and challenging 2020 has been for us, I am so grateful for the opportunity to connect with colleagues virtually. Your OCC team has been

hard at work to bring you PD opportunities as sadly many of our departments have seen budget cuts including PD funding.

Update on Key Issues/ Potential Activities Planned to Year End:

We are excited to welcome Bonnie Lipton-Bos back to OCC as our HOSA representative. With her guidance and support, I feel confident that we will continue to strive towards our OCC objectives and priorities for this year

Given the budget cuts many colleges are facing, the OCC collectively decided to waive 2020-2021 membership fees at the recommendation of our lovely Chair-elect Sue Furs.

• OCC/ CCCO sponsored 24 registrations to this year’s virtual CICMH conference – thanks to Sue and John for coordinating this monumental task!

• Virtual Joint Regional Meeting (JRM) has been scheduled for January 25th which will include 2 amazing speakers, watch out for details coming soon!

As we continue to do this work and respond by providing effective counselling supports on each of our campuses, during the past year I have been tremendously pleased to have been working with an outstanding group of dedicated colleagues on the OCC/ CCCO executive who are committed to college counselling. I would like to thank each member of our executive for their work in fulfilling their respective positions on our executive.

Wishing everyone all the best as you continue to take care of your students and each other!

Maheen Sayal

Counsellor, Sheridan College

5 Strategies for Combating WFH-based Burnout

By Author: Julie Winkle Giulioni

As organizations continue to implement work-from-home strategies in response to the global pandemic, many employees are discovering that this option isn’t all they had expected.

The fantasy of an "easy" life -- exercising midday, getting some laundry done during that conference call and even juggling child care responsibilities -- has met with the reality of fractured attention, lack of onsite support resources and longer hours. The result is that, after two months, burnout is on the rise.

Internet jokes about forgetting what day it is abound. But what’s no laughing matter is that too many employees forget even what time it is as they unexpectedly find themselves lulled into working morning, noon and night when home becomes the office. As someone who’s officed out of my home for nearly 30 years (long before it was in vogue), I know how simultaneously seductive and depleting it can be.

For many, burnout is a result of losing the temporal barrier that had previously separated work from home life. When WFW (working from work), there are multiple actions that signal the brain to know that it’s time to transition. Shutting down the computer. Checking out with co-workers. Listening to the news while sitting in traffic during the commute home. In the absence of those signals and that transition, the workday simply continues.

Shutdown rituals can reduce burnout, enhance productivity and make working from home work. Shutdown rituals

People who can successfully and sustainably work from home understand the necessity of balancing all of the other things they do from home with the work. For many, the key is to develop and religiously observe shutdown

rituals that trigger the brain and body to shift gears. Consider these incredibly simple strategies as you craft rituals that work for you.

1. Close the door. Many who are working from home are doing so from dens and dining-room tables. But, if you’re fortunate enough to have a separate space, when day is done, simply closing the door can be a powerful message that it’s time to move on. Not only that, the closed door is a literal barrier and a reminder of your intention when you’re tempted to dip back into work.

2. Say "goodnight." Trade bidding co-workers adieu on your way to the parking lot for a quick text, IM or email. Share a short message of appreciation for their contributions to your day or reference something you know about how they’ll be spending their evening.

3. Capture insights. Reflection has long been acknowledged as an excellent way to bring closure to one’s day; but it also serves as a transitional signal for those working at home. Ask yourself: What did I learn? How did I feel? What will I do differently? What am I grateful for? Journaling your thoughts can be a powerful and satisfying way to wrap up one’s day on a high note and ready yourself to move on.

4. Make a plan. Another way to wrap up one day is to begin planning the next. Take a few minutes to review your schedule. Pull together necessary resources. Anticipate challenges and issues. List your to-dos. This clears the conscious mind, freeing up more energy for evening activities while allowing the subconscious to begin working on issues as necessary overnight.

5. Phone a friend. Remember those calls you used to make on your commute home, checking in with friends or family members? You don’t need to be on the road to reach out. Not only can it act as a transition; it can also satisfy today’s heightened need for human connection. Follow the leader

Everyone who’s working from home can benefit from establishing shutdown rituals that trigger the brain and transition the body into a different mode. But this may be even more important for leaders and executives within the

organization. Leadership behaviors set the tone and establish expectations for everyone else.

An employee in a technology firm recently shared: “Given all that’s going on in the world -- and in my home -- I’m already hyper-vigilant and on edge. Now my boss is sending emails at all hours of the night and I’ve lost the excuse of not being in the office.”

Leaders are in a powerful position to model the behaviors that can make working from home work. When they make a point to shut their days down, they give permission to employees to do the same, enabling the balance and rejuvenation required to get up and do it all over tomorrow.

Despite increasing pressure over the past decade to offer greater flexibility regarding when and where work gets done, the reality of working from home is beginning to sink in, along with the burnout. Shutdown rituals -- practiced by leaders and employees alike -- are one way to ensure that we realize the promise rather than the problems of the WFH lifestyle. Published by SmartBrief - Julie Winkle Giulioni works with organizations worldwide to improve performance through leadership and learning. Named one of Inc. Magazine's top 100 leadership speakers. You can learn more about her speaking, training and blog at JulieWinkleGiulioni.com.

https://alachicago.org/news/510282/5-Strategies-for-Combating-WFH-based-Burnout---Julie-Winkle-Giulioni.htm

How well are you doing?Balancing supporting our clients’ needs while supporting ourselves is a tricky endeavour. To assess how well you are doing try taking the Professional Quality of Life Scale (ProQOL). It is a free tool that measures both the positive and negative aspects of caring. https://www.proqol.org/uploads/ProQOL_5_English.pdf

College Updates

Sheridan College

Our team began working entirely virtually using Zoom. However, we have recently made a seamless transition to using MS teams. We continue to remain 100% virtual.

Each September Sheridan holds an event for all staff and faculty. There are several awards given out during this event to recognize excellence in the college. Our Counselling team was nominated and won a Sheridan People’s award and the counselling team was celebrated at the welcome back event.

Beginning this fall we have started offering drop -in sessions for students. Students can book these appointments online up to 2 hours before the appointment. This is in aligns with us moving towards a stepped care model.

Our team has also been finding creative ways to build community and offer support to our students. This semester we have been working on:

Suzyo Bavi created a forum in collaboration with the black student’s association to support our Black students.

Suzyo Bavi is the leading a research project on how to support students on the spectrum

Every Friday Kait Hammel, and Maheen Sayal have been offering an online mood route.

Kait Hammel and Ed Moszynski are currently offering 2 cohorts of Thriving in Action. In addition, Kanchan Kurichh has added a yoga class specifically for TIA participants. One of the TIA facilitators co- presented at the CICMH on this initiative.

Suzyo Bavi and Edward Moszynski continue to offer the FACEit group virtually for the students on the spectrum.

Ida Gianvito, Ed Moszynski and Andrew Holmes have created a student satisfaction questionnaire to evaluate the drop-in appointments.

Ida Gianvito and Ed Moszynski are Supervising Master’s students on their placements.

Suzyo Bavi, Andrew Holmes, Alyse Nishimura and Colette Barras have facilitated presentations for the Sheridan community in collaboration with the Centre for Equity and Inclusion on diverse topics ( including the impact of COVID 19 on the LGBTQ+ population, the mental health impact of COVID19 and practicing faith during COVID 19).

Kanchan Kurichh has been developing a series of mindful movement online videos for the Sheridan Community.

Alyse Nishimura and Colette Barras are offering a virtual 7 week “Take Control of Worry Group” every Tuesday afternoon.

Andrew Holmes has been collaborating with the building positive spaces group and is currently focusing on programming for the Trans Day of Remembrance.

Andrew Holmes is facilitating a drop-in Q&A and community building space in residence starting this coming Monday.

We continue to offer each other, and our students support during these challenging times._________________________________________________________________________________________

Conestoga College Submitted by: Shawna Bernard

Another fall semester is upon us, and we continue to move forward even during a pandemic! As I write this, it is a beautiful sunny Remembrance Day which creates pause for reflection, appreciation, and remembrance. This semester I am more aware of the context of our current Black Lives Matter movement, getting past the recent election south of the border last week, and our work with international students who are studying abroad during a pandemic or virtually from India. I am also mindful of how we as Canadians reflect on Remembrance Day within the context of our Indigenous history and our current efforts to practice Truth and Reconciliation closer to home.

At Conestoga College, we are continuing to provide virtual counselling supports to students during the pandemic. Our college continues to have an enrollment of approximately 23,000 full-time students with a large growth in our international student population. This fall semester, several Business programs are seeing students study their first semester from India while awaiting approval to travel to Canada for their program study. In terms of our service area, this fall our Counselling and Peer Support team integrated with our Medical Care Clinic on campus to form our new Student Health and Wellness Department. Our counsellors are providing counselling support virtually by phone or video appointments. After many years of using the Clockworks database, we have just begun using PSS Suite EMR system for booking client appointments, following the medical model of using Telus Health. Training on the use of this system and customizing it for our post-secondary setting has been a focus this fall, as well as working more closely with our medical team on campus.

For fall semester 2020 our staffing complement includes our full-time counsellors, co-ordinated care counsellors, and peer support navigator. As we are currently not working physically at any campus location, our counsellors are no longer working from/ serving specifically designated campuses, but rather serving all Conestoga students who are currently living in Ontario. Our full-time counsellors include: Lynn Robbins-White, Shawna Bernard, Keith Martin, Marshall Chanda, Lydia Almorales-Ray, Adrienne Moore, and Erin Mackay. Counsellor Alicia Glynn is still on maternity leave. Melissa DeNoble and Comfort Afari continue to work as co-ordinated care counsellors and Kayleigh Hilborn, Peer Support Navigator, is also part of our counselling and peer support team, with Patty McColl being our clinical manager.

In addition to providing virtual counselling appointments to students, we have also been offering some remote groups and workshops. The college’s Co-Curricular Portal, through the Student Engagement department, has been the online platform for students to register. We have offered several series focused on health and wellness. These have included:

Three sleep series workshops offered by counsellor Lydia Almorales-Ray during Health and Wellness Week focusing on “Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, and Waking Up.”

Erin Mackay (counsellor) facilitated three workshops for OPAIP students (Ontario Post-Secondary Access and Inclusion Project) this fall in their College Bound Program. Two of the workshops focused on “Juggling School and Life Balance” and one workshop focused on “Living Well with Stress.”

Marshall Chanda (counsellor) offered a “DBT Coping Skills” workshop for faculty during a recent Organizational Development workshop series.

Our peer navigator Kayleigh Hilborn has been offering several weekly drop-in workshops this semester, including “Mindful Mondays” and “Depression, Anxiety, and Hope”.

An eight-week closed group, “Mindfulness & Meditation to Reduce Stress” was also co-facilitated by Shawna Bernard (counsellor) and Kayleigh Hilborn (peer support navigator).

A workshop offering, “Missed Your Mark: How to Overcome Disappointment and Failure,” is being offered to students by counsellor Adrienne Moore.

As requested by Athletics and Recreation, two workshops were offered to varsity athletes (Men’s and Women’s Basketball Teams) by Shawna Bernard and Kayleigh Hilborn on “Dealing with Stress, Change and Uncertainty” during the pandemic as well as information on support services available to students.

Based on faculty request, Keith Martin (counsellor) offered a “Compassion Fatigue” workshop to faculty and staff through a recent Organizational Development PD series. Keith highly recommends the website www.tendacademy.com for anyone interested in learning more about compassion fatigue.

“Culture Stress” workshops were offered to international students, co-facilitated by Alicia Albl (International Transition Co-ordinator) and Shawna Bernard (counsellor).

Although safeTALK workshops were requested by faculty and students, due to our remote delivery this fall these workshops were not provided as per LivingWorks standards. However, information on the new online LivingWorks Start program was provided for faculty who wanted to share this information with their students.

As the saying goes, the only thing constant is change! We are joining all of our counselling colleagues across the province as we navigate this new landscape virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What does remain the same, however, is our commitment to serving students and providing innovative ways for delivering our various offerings. We wish everyone well and hope you are having a good fall. Be well and stay safe!

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Durham College Submitted by: Ryan Brown

With the dramatic shifts we have all experienced in 2020, our counselling services in the Durham College Access and Support Centre have remained as busy as ever. The four counsellors have continued to connect with and support students virtually, as well as offering four virtual counselling groups. The transition to providing groups online has the added benefit of making it easier for students taking programs from either our Oshawa or Whitby campuses to attend. Groups this semester have included the ADHD Support Group facilitated by Shayna Golding; Pawsitive Coping During COVID-19 facilitated by Shayna Golding, where students are invited to bring their animal to the virtual group and discuss how connecting with animals can promote well-being; Thriving During Uncertain Times facilitated by Ryan Brown; and Building your Anxiety Management Toolkit facilitated by Paula Desaulniers.

Our vocational assessment service has been able to pivot and obtain online assessment tools that allowed us to support numerous students this semester with developing self-awareness and support their career planning.

The successful peer-coaching program has become even more popular with students this year, and the virtual platform seems to be a convenient way for students to connect with their peer coach. Over 115 students have been supported virtually for 1-1 appointments by the peer coaches since September 2020. We currently have ten peer coaches with recruitment and training ongoing to keep up with the student demand for peer coaching services. Our peer coaches include placement students, work study students, and Access and Support Centre student volunteers. Peer coaches have also been running three groups for students this semester: Mindful Meditation, Social Connection, and Drop-In Academic Support groups. Wishing you all a good fall semester!

Centennial College Submitted by: Lishan Baileyegn

We hope everyone has been keeping healthy and safe during these challenging and unexpected times. It’s always comforting to know that especially during a time like this, we have a larger community through the OCC to reach out to and stay connected with! As many of you can relate, we

certainly did not anticipate the gravity of the longer-term impact Covid-19 has had on us all.

We will begin our update by sharing that we are thrilled to announce that we have two additional permanent counselling roles filled, one at our Morningside Campus and the other at our Story Arts Centre. These permanent positions have enhanced our existing staffing compliment to meet the ongoing student needs and requests for support. We have also gained a few additional coordinators to our larger leadership team. During the winter term, in addition to having Coordinators for Access and Accommodations, Intake and Scheduling, Case Management and Sexual Violence Supports, we now have a dedicated Health and Wellness Education Coordinator, Accessible Learning Coordinator and Administrative Coordinator comprised of support staff members on our broader CALCS team. Our four counselling coordinator colleagues continue to work on building and expanding on the existing projects within our department. These coordinators carry on work to enhance our electronic health record system (Input Health) to set the framework for virtual service delivery and there continues to be dedication in creating a safe space for students to access sexual violence supports and resources. There is also considerable work invested in streamlining academic accommodation processes, enhancing UDL education through outreach efforts including awareness building and creating a robust and more formal approach to activating case management involvement and related supports and community resources.

Our coordinator incumbents also continue to be key members of our team in helping shape the direction of our future as a department and spearheading much of the effort to support and adopt our quick shift to a virtual service delivery model. On that note, Covid 19 has brought about some important changes and considerations in the way that we do our work. Telework, which is a novel experience for many of us given our field and the nature of our work, has now become the new norm and has undoubtedly had an impact on students, ourselves and the larger college community. We have been fortunate enough to have a robust electronic health record system that has been updated to include additional features which have allowed us to maintain service delivery and consistency. We can now offer telephone and video based personal and accessibility counselling sessions in adherence with PHIPA regulations. In the initial weeks of the facility closure, Centennial

also offered funding support to students affected by Covid-19 called the Centennial College Covid-19 Relief Bursary to respond to the wide felt impact students were and continue to experience.

Our efforts to maintain service consistency continues in our collective work to implement a walk-in and single session modality of practice and we remain committed to actively engaging in professional development sessions. Our professional development has offered additional training and supervision with the support of Dr. Salaha Khan, Clinical Psychologist, who we are fortunate to work with and recently joined our team in August. As a result, we have been able to build upon our knowledge base and enrich our ability to offer single session therapy to students which has resulted in positive feedback from the College community. Our roles and duties as a team have evolved since the fall and spring term as we mentioned in our previous update that we are now all offering personal counselling and accessibility services which has enhanced our capacity to meet urgent student needs and a consistent demand for service throughout the academic year.

As a result of Covid-19 and changes in service demand over the summer, we have been working to create outreach opportunities to connect with students and teaching faculty. Over the summer, we were involved in various high priority projects ranging from developing virtual micro skills and psychoeducational workshops in both asynchronous and synchronous modalities, creating a bank of relevant online resources available to support students to offering virtual class visits. We have further expanded on this work by helping to train student Peer Listeners who recently joined our team and will be providing added support to students.

Given many of us have also been feeling the personal and professional impacts of Covid-19, our leadership team has been instrumental in helping to create intentional time and space for us to connect in meaningful ways as a team and on a regular basis. We connect through our weekly counselling check-in meetings and other informal opportunities to keep in contact and practice self-care which has been very valuable during this time.

With that, we are excited to learn about how our OCC colleagues are doing and look forward to reading updates soon. Until then, we wish you all a safe second half of the fall semester!

From all of us at Centennial, Steven Ruhinda Catherine Chen Roma Rashidi

Stephanie Hal Eric Dunn Lishan Baileyegn

Kevin Bourns Carla Grey Barbara Pierre

Mona Chan Irene Volinets Amita Singh

Ilana Goldsmith Jen Swanton

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Niagara College

Health, Wellness & Accessibility continues to offer services available for all students, delivered remotely at this time in accordance with current restrictions due to COVID-19. We are meeting with students virtually via phone/video at the preference of students. Our health clinics continue to operate on a weekly basis, in a limited capacity.

Stephanie Stephens is offering knowledge teaching and learning through the Fireside Chat Series on Zoom every Monday from 7 – 9 pm in collaboration with Indigenous Education; open to all students, staff and the public. This is participant-driven and an opportunity for PD relating to Indigenous cultural competency and trauma-informed education. Please contact Stephanie at: ststephens@niagaracollege.ca for more information.

Michelle MacIntosh continues to run KORU meditation classes for the 2020 academic year. The class is virtually delivered due to COVID-19. KORU continues to be offered for both students and staff for Fall 2020. Michelle also continues to reach out to the college community and students through Instagram to provide connection and resources currently available.

Michelle MacIntosh and Angela Arsenio are offering “Feeling Your Emotions”; a virtual group for Niagara College students to help better understand the

nature of emotions, assist in labelling, and build skills on how to manage emotions in a healthy and positive manner.

Angela Arsenio is coordinating the ‘The Wellness Peer Program’ which is designed to provide opportunities for students to engage with trained Wellness Peers in a relaxed, supported conversation around common student challenges and wellness concerns, such as loneliness and stress. Wellness Peers are student staff who are trained to provide active listening, empathy, peer support, and campus and community referrals. The program provides 10 hours per week of virtual support at each campus, offered through Instagram.

Jennifer Babin with the assistance of Jim McEwan (Assistive Technology) continue to facilitate Thrive @ NC; a 5 week resiliency program to help students explore learning strategies and technologies, and to assist students in developing resilience to the overwhelming moments of uncertainty and fear that so many are experiencing and continue to experience right now.

Rayna Laughlin is our counselling OPSUE representative who is actively involved in the provincial working group helping to define a current College Counsellor class definition, as it pertains to the Academic Collective Agreement.

Rayna Laughlin continues to plan the delivery of “ More Feet on the Ground”, a CICMH project, to help students and staff learn how to recognize, respond, and refer students experiencing mental health issues on/off campus.

Katia Coholan and Andrea Walker are delivering a virtual therapy group named “Coping with the Blues”; a four-week skills group to help assist students struggling with low to moderate depressive symptoms. Participants learn cognitive behavioural strategies to effectively manage thoughts and emotions associated with depression.

We are pleased to announce that Emily Appleyard has accepted the position of Learning Strategist. Emily has extensive experience with HWAS, and we’re thrilled to welcome her back. Emily is currently on maternity leave and will return to work in May 2021. We have also hired a maternity leave replacement for Emily. We’d like to welcome Amanda Wiley to our team.

We continue to promote students and staff to engage in self-care as we take of each other during these challenging Covid times. Stay safe and stay well!

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Georgian College Submitted by: Greg Taylor

With our counselling services being delivered virtually, all of our counsellors are now completing Foundations of Cyber Counselling, taught by Lawrence Murphy through University of Toronto. This training is highly recommended, especially if you don’t have much experience with virtual counselling.

We welcome back Kelly Woods from her maternity leave and she will work part-time until the Winter Semester, when she will then return to full-time.

Our counselling team has continued to adjust to working around the challenges of COVID and we have amalgamated forms to create one online consent form for students. We are continuing to tweak our website as well as in the process of implementing a new platform called ConnexED. We are currently providing counselling through either the phone or MS Team Video and hope to have ConnexED running in the new year. In the meantime, we will continue to use Clock Work for scheduling and storage of notes.

All counsellors from Barrie, Orillia and Owen Sound campuses are now taking turns to provide on-call counselling (pre-COVID it was just Barrie Campus Counsellors) and with improved virtual services available, our smaller campuses (South Georgian Bay, Midland, Orangeville, and Muskoka) are getting better access to counselling.

Several counsellors were involved in the launch of our new Mental Health Strategy, led by Jennifer Lloyd, Manager of Mental Health Strategies. The Mental Health and Wellbeing (MHWB) website has excellent information and referrals to a variety of resources, both within and outside of Georgian. The Strategic Plan was not only developed for Georgian students but also for Georgian staff. Attached is a picture of the MHWB Team holding signs during Launch Week. During the Launch Week, Carrie Shute from Owen Sound Campus took part in a Q&A Live Chat for students and Greg Taylor facilitated a workshop on Compassion Fatigue for staff. Jennifer Lloyd and her assistant Kate Henry did an amazing job launching the strategy.

NEW COUNSELLORS!!!Check out the OCC/CCDO Website to find out how to become a member and to check out our PD Resources, Counsellor Café, and Links.

We would like to leave you with a feel-good video. This video reminds us of what is really important in life. The positive interactions we have with others can cause wonderful things to happen for them but

also for us.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632CHpeHYZE

NEW COUNSELLORS!!!Check out the OCC/CCDO Website to find out how to become a member and to check out our PD Resources, Counsellor Café, and Links.