John Richards welcomed our two guests, Roger Romero and Jon Oosterman from Pathways for Education Kingston. Roger moved to Kingston with his family from El Salvador in the early 1980's (he has spoken about his experiences as a new Canadian to our club - Ed.). Roger is Program Coordinator for Pathways and is a Friend of Rotary with our club. A graduate of Brock University in Psychology, Roger oversees the after school programs and partnerships for Pathways Kingston. Jon Oosterman is a graduate of St. Lawrence College in Psychology and has worked at Pathways for over 5 years. Jon is the new Facilitator of Alumni Relations (FAR) - where the program name comes from.

 

What is Pathways? An national organization started in Regent Park in Toronto in a Community Health Centre, dedicated to helping students in disadvantaged neighbourhoods succeed in high school. It was an organization dedicated to being proactive, not reactive in helping kids. Pathways Kingston follows this structure of being associated with a Community Health Centre (KCHC), working to help with the social causes of poor health.

 

Although Pathways is extremely successful in helping kids to graduate high school, a needs assessment showed that success didn't translate to post secondary education - many Pathways alumni dropped out after one term. The Kingston Community Foundation funded a small pilot project that showed the concept was solid. This was when the FAR project was conceived. Using a Rotary Global Grant, money from other Rotary clubs in this District and several clubs from India, and from private donors, a three year project designed to support grads beyond high school was created and approved by Pathways National. The Rotary FAR Project became one of the projects selected for the Kingston Rotary Centennial year projects. FAR will be funded for three years while an endowment is set up to make it self sustaining.

 

The role of the facilitator is to provide alumni with support to navigate the world of post secondary education. Jon explained that the job is different everyday; helping students navigating tutoring; securing accommodations for special needs (including getting assessed); dealing with OSAP, simple financial needs like grocery cards, bus passes, and accommodations; connecting to adult education for those who need to improve their grades before applying; and much more. The facilitator operates on the principle that non-parental adults are key to student success in pot secondary education.

 

The preliminary results are impressive - the post secondary retention rate for alumni has risen from 30 to 85%!

 

Questions

Are you reporting the Pathways National in expectation of them supporting this in the future? Yes, we are collecting data and communicating to National and to our Indian Rotary Club partners as they are also interested to see if they can use the program.

 

You mentioned these young people have been let down by adults, what do you mean? Many students have teachers that are overloaded, access programs that get their funding cut, or come from broken homes.  This sets up a 'to good to be true' mentality - goods things that happen to them can't last.  Our role is to be the constant presence that they can count on.

 

This is a great program - when will the endowment be set up? They are in a quiet phase right now but will launch publicly soon.

 

How do we publicize this?  Do we need a new name?  FAR is a mouthful.  We actually like the project name - FAR.  Facilitator of Alumni Relations is a mouthful yes, but we like the idea that you can go FAR, but can you go Rotary FAR?

 

Greta thanked Roger and Jon for their presentation, noting their enthusiasm and how that builds success. Great also congratulated them on the latest round of post-secondary acceptances for the students. It's very heartwarming to see the success of a project that we have put substantial support behind.