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>> The HealthAid Network is a course-based peer mentorship
program designed to support student success,
student engagement in the first year and also
to develop student leadership skills
as they participate in the program.
Because of the AIF funding, we were able
to hire a HealthAid Network coordinator.
Her name is Auroosa Kazmi.
>> So I am the HealthAid Network coordinator,
which basically means I do all the daily administrative work
for the program.
So I do all the recruitment, the training, and all the way
down to the evaluation process.
So it's kind of all the work that happens behind the scenes
to set up what the program will look like.
>> I'm very committed to student experience and student success,
but what I like, particularly, about this project is
that the idea came from students, from the Faculty
of Health Student Caucus,
and they have continued to be major partners.
The student caucus created a proposal, which was submitted
where they had identified a need for better support
for incoming first-year students.
>> So within the program, we have myself,
and then we have senior peer mentors.
So senior peer mentors are paid upper-year students
within kinesiology, psychology, nursing, and health studies,
and they actually supervise the mentorship teams
that are below them.
In the mentorship teams, you have peer mentors,
which are volunteers and upper year students,
and then you have class reps,
which are our first-year students
in those respective programs.
>> They work together.
They meet twice a month for two hours.
They have very structured meetings together
where they learn about student's success activities.
They engage in leadership development workshops.
They do tours of resource units across the campus
so that they can funnel that information
into a class announcement.
>> In the classroom announcement,
there are essentially four pieces.
So there's academic resources,
so looking at what students need academically within their class
at that point in time.
There's a social event that's happening on campus
because we think it's important for students to get involved.
There's important dates and deadlines,
so if there's upcoming tests or a drop deadline,
those things are mentioned.
As well as there's a site visit.
So we have our students visit resources on campus,
and they're taking the most important thing they learn
from their visit and incorporating it
into their larger class so they can benefit as well.
>> So my role for this year
for HealthAid was being a peer mentor in kinesiology.
As a peer mentor, I facilitated small workshops
for class representatives.
They participate in leadership workshops.
As well, we took them on site visits
so that they can have the opportunity to know
about all the resources on campus.
It's always great to know all these resources in first year
so that when you come across something in second or third
or fourth year, like, you just know it.
It's there.
And you can just go to it when you need it.
>> I think the most interesting result that we had was
that over half of the people we surveyed,
and we have about 950 surveys collected,
said that they either used one of the resources
we recommended, or they attended an event or both
that we had advertised, which was really great for us
because we are meeting students' needs, obviously, through that.
So it was a great thing to hear.
>> We're a commuter university.
Students spend less than five hours a week outside
of classroom activities.
So it's difficult to get engagement in the first place.
And secondly, that students who are here tended not to be
as engaged as one would like in order to ensure
that they are successful in first year.
So the idea of the program was
to actually support this student engagement and student success
through a peer mentorship program.
>> Being part of this organization, you're involved,
and like, they really worked on making sure
that you were comfortable and making sure
that you were growing as an individual.
I think that's one of the main focuses as being a mentor
for a mentee is to help them facilitate growth
as a human being.
>> I think HealthAid really helps the students get away
from that really intimidated and stressful period of their life
in first year, and it teaches them
that university isn't intimidating.
It's fun, and you can have lots of fun and meet a lot
of new people and learn a lot of great things.
>> Students' needs are very complex.
It's more than knowing about the resources that you can use.
Oftentimes, it's feeling like somebody is there for you.
>> It's not just about learning about York or the York community
or giving back to the community.
It goes more than that.
You build friendships that last lifetimes.
>> Well, the AIF funding has been invaluable in helping us
to develop this program, in helping us
to hire resource people that have made major contributions
to the development of the program and to the evaluation
of this program, which is really important.
And it has also enabled us to reach our maximum capacity,
which means that by 2013, the HealthAid Network will be
in every core 1000-level course in every program in the Faculty
of Health, reaching 4900 first-year students,
which is an achievement that we could only,
really, have dreamed of.
So it has been terrific to have that kind of financial support.
>> The AIF funding has been absolutely essential
for this project.
It really gave us the opportunity to really figure
out how can we make this the best that it can be.
Without the AIF funding, we wouldn't have had the resources
to be able to do that.
And I think having the University support us
in that way, really allowed us to be imaginative, be creative,
and see where our imaginations could take us.
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