Career colleges were featured in today’s Toronto Sun. The article profiled two career college graduates who received funding under the province’s Second Career Strategy, a popular retraining program that assists students with tuition, books and living expenses. Ontario’s career colleges have delivered about half of the training under Second Career.

Three Second Career recipients will tell their story at Blue Mountain 2010, OACC’s 37th annual conference. In their own words, the two graduates and one student will explain what is was like to lose their jobs due to cutbacks and how they persevered to become a college graduate.

An article about laid-off workers seeking retraining appeared in the Waterloo Region Record newspaper last Saturday. Don Thibert, OACC President and Director of Academic Affairs at Everest College, commented on the strong work ethic of students pursuing a second career. After the initial adjustment, the mature students are “there every day, active and participating in class. They are excited to learn,” said Thibert.

About 28,000 people across Ontario have had financial aid in retraining from the province’s Second Career program. Last fall the criteria was tightened on Second Career as the government moved to control costs.

In the budget released last Thursday, the Ontario government promised to help another 30,000 people with the Second Career program over two years for a total cost of approximately $600 million.

To read the article, click here.

Good news from Ontario’s career colleges made it into the media last week.

Two instructors – one from Trebas Institute and the other from Medix School – were profiled by Metro, a daily commuter newspaper. The feature followed a similar story from February, written about two other career college instructors. From TV and film to clinical anatomy to accounting, career college instructors teach a wide variety of subjects. They are interesting and passionate about what they do!

The other news item comes from the Barrie Examiner newspaper. CTS Canadian Career College graduate Lori Majer talks about her placement experience at the David Busby Street Centre, a drop-in centre in downtown Barrie for homeless or marginalized people. Lori graduated from the addictions and interventions counselling program at CTS. As a result of her extraordinary work during the co-op placement, Lori was hired on as a full-time case manager at the Centre in mid February.

“My placement has allowed me to experience, the joys, hardships, sadness and triumphs of many of the participants,” writes Lori in the article. “Whether I am helping with referrals, speaking kind words, sorting clothing, and dispensing personal care products, I am hopeful this encourages one person to have a better day as it does mine.”

Lori closes the piece with this:

“My placement has reinforced my belief in humanity, that there is goodness in every person, and every person deserves and has the right to basic needs.”

Career colleges are making a difference in the lives of many every day, and it’s rewarding when we get to share our good news stories.

NACC Magazine

The next NACC Magazine is being prepared for Spring 2010. The magazine is distributed to every high school guidance department across Canada, NACC members and key stakeholders such as Members of Parliament. It is also published on the NACC website.

There is space for “good news” stories from every provincial association. These should not be student testimonials but items that would be of interest to prospective students about special events, special recognitions such as awards at the Skills Canada Competition, community service, new programs or any other items that are newsworthy.

If you have an good news story from your college, please e-mail it to kristas@oacc.on.ca by noon on February 8, 2010!

It may not be just a bad case of the Mondays. Statistically speaking, the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year.

According to the third annual Everest College Workplace Blues Survey conducted by Harris-Decima, the biggest cause of the blues among employed Canadians was the economy, at 29 per cent, and work – at 26 per cent.

“I think the biggest celebration New Year’s Eve was to close out 2009,” said Don Thibert, Director of Academic Affairs at Everest College and President of the Ontario Association of Career Colleges, in a recent Canadian Press article. “I think a lot of people are looking forward to 2010 being a much better year.”

The survey was conducted Dec. 3-6 and questioned 1,009 Canadians, including 599 who were employed. The results are considered accurate within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

“Nearly three-quarters of the people surveyed said that they suffer from at least occasional bouts of workplace blues, and that’s up 11 per cent over the three years we’ve done the survey,” said Thibert.

If work is a problem, Thibert suggested keeping a journal for a month and rating each day from one to 10, with one being “completely unbearable” and 10 being “euphorically great.”

“If you’re coming in six or lower, you might really want to start taking a hard look at a career change,” he suggested.

Other Media Coverage of the Year’s Most Depressing Day

News 1130

Canada.com