In today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world, a student’s career choice can seem endless, making the task a daunting and sometimes confusing one. This is especially true in grade 9, where students are required to plan their academic course work and choose their pre-requisite classes: choices that can greatly influence their future educational and career pathways.
Making that decision a little easier was one of the ideas behind Connexion’s Adventures in Health Careers, a half-day event that connected 77 grade 9 students with local health professionals. This was also an opportunity to inform students about careers in the health and social services sector in order to encourage more students to study in these fields. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of bilingual health and social services professionals working in our region.
In a series of workshops and a Q&A Panel with health professionals, students from Pontiac High School had the opportunity to meet and speak to various health and social services professionals, who were on-hand to answer questions about their jobs, training and the early stages of their career paths.
The workshops highlighted professions including nursing, speech therapist, social worker, respiratory therapist and pathways to those professions:
- Sarah Gutman, instructor in the Special Care Counselling program at Heritage College, explained the differences in social services professions like social work, Psychology and different counselling therpies. She also provided information about the kinds of courses, practical work experiences and the different job titles of the Special Care Counsellor.
- The Pontiac Vocational Centre offered an interactive workshop with hands-on activities allowing students to see what they would do as a Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) or orderly in a hospital. Students had their blood pressure taken, washed their hands with glow-in-the-dark paint to see how hard it was to wash away germs, and got to learn about lifting a patient, counting medication doses and how to take a pulse.;
- Cegep Heritage College was also on-site with their Kiosk to promote health-related programs and to share information on pre-requisites needed to pursue their studies after high school.
The Q&A Panel was moderated by Gail Hawley-McDonald, who works for the McGill Training and Retention Project, and included five health and social services professionals, currently working in the public health system:
- Amanda Amyotte, RN: graduate of the Heritage Nursing Program and now working at the Shawville Hospital;
- Chelsea Declare, LPN: graduate of the Western Quebec Career Centre (WQCC) in Campbell’s Bay in Assistance in Nursing and now working at the Shawville Hospital;
- Annick Sigouin, Speech Pathologist at the CLSC in Shawville;
- Linda Sullivan, Social Worker in des Collines, Alison Lewis, Respiratory Therapist (inhalothérapeute ), graduated from Algonquin College and now also working at the Shawville Hospital.
Connexions would like to thank Gail and the health professionals for coming out to speak to the high school students.
This initiative was funded by McGill University through a financial contribution from Health Canada.
