 I'm Allison Kilgammon and I'm an instructor at UFE here in the upgrading and university prep department. For the Metis Community Support Worker Program partnership with MMBC, we decided that we would like to introduce students to the university life and allow them to upgrade any skills or education they need. So I came in as an instructor in the first semester and the second semesters to help the students upgrade English in the first semester and education and career planning in the second semester. As for the MCSW program as a whole, the idea is that the students will be able to earn a community support worker certificate through UFE, but they'll be able to have a Metis component with that as well. What we did in the upgrading and university prep department is, like I said, get the students ready for the program so that they'd be able to take all of the courses that are required. And as it's a set term program to have the students be able to work straight through and be able to get through everything that they needed early. That was what we were after in the UUP department program is a 64 week program and there's a practicum involved. Students have classes which are predetermined by the program directors at the university. And so as a cohort, the students will take the same classes as each other and they will take a set courses that are determined for them. So it is different from a university experience where students take whatever is going to work in their schedule. In this case, the schedule is made up for the students. All the different classes, each course will have specific learning objectives on their own. So they may include field trips or may include more practical applications. And then of course there is a big cultural component as it is the Metis community support worker program. So there are often guests come in, elders are available. There is a Friday cultural day where there are workshops. There are different events and potlucks. So the students do have the experience of activities that community support worker students would have with practical applications and field trips. And then they also have that in a cultural component as well, specifically for Metis. Well, we're not at the end of the program yet. We're in our third semester now, but I feel that I was very fortunate to be with the students in their first two semesters. Actually, I was their first instructor when they walked in on the very first day. I was teaching them upgrading English and they were with me for about seven condensed weeks right at the beginning of the program in the summertime. And so we got to know each other very quickly. And then again in September when the students had community support worker program courses. I was in again in my role from UUP doing education and career planning with them. And so they were very busy. We saw each other at a regular schedule of twice a week and they have their courses, other courses, you know, once or twice a week as well. So I did get to see them through their first two semesters and it was amazing. And I saw such a lot of growth and amazing difference in the students. As the student life goes, there are ups and downs at all times. So one student's trajectory may, you know, be different from another's, but definitely so much growth and insight into themselves as students as well as their cultural component and so much insight into their future careers, especially in the education and career preparation course I was able to see students think of their futures in a way that they maybe never have. They did a lot of exploring what their future careers possibly could look like. I spent a lot of time reaching out to others, doing networking, attending events, which they already had as part of the cultural component. But now they were doing activities where they would bring that into the classroom and then create an assignment out of it, which made it that much more concrete. So it was amazing to see students grew in the second semester, which was our fall semester in leaps and bounds. When we first were getting together and discussing how we would deliver the program, it was mostly UUP instructors because we were trying to get ready to start the students in their first semester with their upgrading and university prep. And so I can speak to how those meetings went, discussing how to bring Métis content into the classes. Certainly the instructors from the community support worker program who are now working for our MCSW students would put that in as well. But I just recall that it was amazing how we were brainstorming ideas. How are we going to get a Métis perspective into an English class? Which was my class and I was so lucky because you can easily put Métis plays, Métis poetry, Métis short stories. We had a summary of how to create a Métis sash. It was a summary paragraph and not only did they learn how to create a Métis sash, but they learned how to make a summary. So I was very fortunate for that the discussion of how we're going to get Métis content into math. You know, talking about plotting things, talking about how can we cute, how can we focus on patterns and then how to put Métis content into computers. Well, good for them. I'm sure that they did it somehow. So it was really exciting putting the Métis content in and I really loved putting that into the English class. It was, I learned a lot, the students learned a lot. The first poem that we did, the very first thing that we did was a poem that made everybody cry. So that was very good. I found that the cohort nature of the program was, it's really amazing. A cohort does have its own relationship, its own life. And having a cohort of students who are learning about their Métis ancestry and culture and identity, and who are also coming to school to embark upon an entirely new program, it's quite a special thing. And I think the cohort model is excellent. I personally felt very close to the students. I felt like we were all in this together. We were together every day in the summer, so busy. And then in September when they were taking five classes, I actually was teaching five classes. And so the mixture of ages and demographic of life experiences for the students, I felt like I could just be one of them. And we had a really good time together.