Unique RRC Polytech course graduates 39 shelter support workers

Red River College Polytech is celebrating its largest class of graduates from a one-of-a-kind course for shelter support workers.

Dozens gathered at Manitou a bi Bii daziigae (formerly known as the Innovation Centre Project) on RRC Polytechnic’s Exchange District campus to recognize the 39 students who earned a shelter support worker micro-credential this year.

“The work ahead is urgent. It will not always be easy, but you are ready,” Tsungai Muvingi Van Landeghem told the grads.

The provincial co-ordinator of the Manitoba Association of Women’s Shelters said both the students’ badges and their commitments “to shaping a safer, more just community” were worthy of celebration.

MAWS developed the six-month-long course in partnership with RRC Polytech and Women and Gender Equity Manitoba. There have been 85 graduates since it launched in 2023.

Jessica Edwards, 38, said she enrolled in the hopes of providing others with the same compassionate, non-judgmental and life-changing care she’s received in the shelter system.

“You come into the shelter so raw and so vulnerable, and the non-judgment and the warm-welcoming and accommodations — the shelter staff made it easy to ask for things — (have stuck with me),” Edwards said.

She recalled experiencing intimate-partner violence for the first time in 2006, shortly after she transitioned out of foster care. The mother of two has sought refuge at a handful of emergency facilities in Winnipeg, Selkirk and Steinbach.

One of the highlights in the RRC Polytech program is the ability for students to share their diverse lived experiences with each other during virtual meetings, she said.

The tuition-free program, which is delivered remotely in a part-time capacity, is funded through the provincial and federal governments as part of the National Action Plan to End Gender-based Violence.

It was designed to grow the workforce and equip future employees with a trauma-informed lens to use in supporting clients at homeless and family violence shelters.

Staff shortages are “the unfortunate norm” in the sector, said Nadine Smith of Women and Gender Equity Manitoba.

Smith indicated that about half of all students are entering the program with work experience in a shelter.

A 20-hour practicum is built into the program so students who’ve never worked in a shelter are exposed to the environment and can build their resumés.

Students learn key shelter terminology and how to set professional boundaries with clients, among other lessons.

This year’s final projects explored topics ranging from the particular challenges of serving seniors to working with clients in hotels.

Edwards, who is a member of Roseau River Anishinaabe First Nation, said she’s leaving the program feeling far more confident in her skills than when she began.

“I’ve been the client but, as humans, we all have our doubts about our capabilities,” she said after Thursday’s convocation.

The program accepts students from all over Manitoba.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca