Exploring Best Practices for Experiential and Community-Engaged Education: Perspectives from the YWCA Hamilton, Students & Faculty/Staff

Event with the MacPherson Institute

November 24, 2023

The Faculty of Social Sciences’ Community Research Platform (CRP) co-hosted the “Exploring Best Practices for Experiential and Community-Engaged Education: Perspectives from the YWCA Hamilton, Students & Faculty/Staff event with the MacPherson Institute on November 24, 2023.

YWCA Hamilton is a social service and advocacy organization in the city with a longstanding history of serving community members who experience marginalization at the intersections of gender, race, ability, and status. On top of YWCA Hamilton being one of the CRP’s five partner organizations since 2019, they have collaborated with faculty, staff, and students across McMaster’s faculties in a variety of projects and capacities for many years.  

This event was facilitated by the CRP’s Program Manager, Leora Sas van der Linden, and included three panel discussions. Panel participants included McMaster faculty and staff (Dr. Karen Balcom, Dr. Melinda Gough, Dr. James Gillett, Sarah Precious, Dave Heidebrecht, Mary Vaccaro) who have partnered with YWCA Hamilton on community-engaged projects, graduate and undergraduate students (Stephanie Milliken, Karen Cushing, Mikayla Robinson, Molly Cameron) who have participated in community-engaged learning opportunities with YWCA Hamilton, as well as YWCA Hamilton leadership (Medora Uppal, Violetta Nikolskaya).  

What we learned from our Community-Engaged discussions

The panelists emphasized how vital it is for university researchers, instructors, and students to centre principles and practices of reciprocity when designing courses with community-engaged learning components. The student panelists discussed how matching students with community-based organizations should not be forced; resources and time should be invested in providing students with the appropriate training or finding students whose experience and education are a good fit for the organization.   

Attendees also had the opportunity to ask panelists questions. This led to many conversations about how to foster trusting and sustainable relationships with community partners, how to honour the labour and resources community organizations invest in training/mentoring students, as well as the importance of prioritizing action and implementing change in this work.  

Please check back on the CRP website for updates!