Webinars for Newly Admitted Graduate Students - Mentorship, Accessibility, and Health & Wellness

Hey, hi, everyone. I'll just give it another minute or so before we officially start.

And I just wanted to thank all of our presenters today and any attendees joining in as well. I know it's a long weekend coming up, so umm, I really appreciate all of you being here.

Alright, so hello everyone. Welcome to our webinar on health and Wellness, accessibility and mentorship. My name is Priya and I'll be facilitating the presentation today.

Uh, before we begin, I'd like to go over some housekeeping. So today's presentation, sorry, just a second, will be recorded and both the recording and slides will be available on the same web page where you registered by the end of next week or so. Umm, second, we ask that if there are any questions, please save them till the end as there's a good chance the questions will be answered during the presentation.

We have three different offices presenting today. So as mentioned earlier, it's health and Wellness accessibility and our Center for super graduate supervision and mentorship. And I will let our presenters officially introduce themselves when it's their turn. Uh, but for now, we're going to hand it over to Amanda and Kevin from our Health and Wellness Center.

Thank you, Priya. Umm, we'll get started. Sorry, just a second. Umm, thank you so much for having us today and welcome to the Health and Wellness overview. We will be going over information about the different resources, programs and services that are offered by health and Wellness for U of T students, as well as some details about how to access them. We will aim to also cover some common questions during the presentation and.

And we'll hold a few minutes to answer any questions you might have. My name is Amanda Begree. I'm a health promotion and community liaison at the Health and Wellness Center. And I use she her pronouns. Today. I'm joined by my colleague Kevin, who will be assisting with slides in the chat and my colleague Sandy and Christy, who will be supporting the Q&A. At the end, I'll ask them to maybe type the roles and pronouns in the chat. Thanks, team.

Next slide.

Before we begin our overview, I would like to do a land acknowledgement. I will be reading U of TS Official Land acknowledgement This statement was developed in consultation with the First Nations House, the Elder Circle, some scholars in the field, and senior university officials. So we wish to acknowledge the land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years, it has been the traditional land of the Huron, Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of.

Today, this meeting place is still home to many Indigenous people across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. We hope that today's presentation will not only support the students here today, but this information will support the communities around us.

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At Health and Wellness, we provide a range of health services for your physical and mental health, as well as Wellness programs and information to support you in achieving your personal and academic goals. Health and Wellness is a division of Student Life at U of T, which encompasses a range of departments that work to enrich the university experience for students. We are currently located at 700 B Street and this is at the corner of Bay and Gerrard next to the shoppers.

This is a temporary location while our original location at the Koffler Student Services Center is under renovation to enhance accessibility and improve student experience. On the left hand of this slide, you'll see a picture of our Gerard St. entrance to our current location.

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Health and Wellness Center consists of the medical services team, the mental health services team, the health promotion team, and our leadership, operations and admin team. So you see a lovely picture of all of us at one of our large team meetings a few years ago. Umm Students can access medical services from family physicians, nurses and dieticians. You can also access mental health services from psychologists, social workers.

Psychotherapists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, doctors, and Wellness navigation advisors.

We also provide health promotion programming from health promotion professionals, student leaders and work study students, including peer supporters and our Healthy U crew. And I have to shadow our administrative support that comes from our medical receptionist and our administrative support staff.

Next slide.

The picture on the left is one of our reception areas at our new location at 700 Bay. On the right, we have listed just some of the medical mental health services that health and Wellness offers for students at U of T Among other services, we offer sexual and reproductive health services, so this includes STI testing, pregnancy testing and Pap tests. Additionally, we also offer gender affirming care including.

For students at any stage of transition.

We also provide a full range of mental health services and supports, which we'll go into more detail about later. Students can also come to health and Wellness for many other reasons, so things like immunizations, blood work requisitions, prescription refills, specialist referrals and referrals to our on staff dietitians. I would really encourage you to check out the extent of our services on our website and see the many ways that Health and Wellness can support you.

Next slide. So now I'll go into some logistical information about the Health and Wellness Center, and I think this is our most important slide that I'll be presenting today. We are located at 700 Bay St. and the Health and Wellness Center occupies the third floor, the 12th floor and the 14th floor. Our mental health services are located on the 12th floor.

Our primary care and medical services are on the 14th floor.

And then on our third floor is where we have our health promotion and admin offices.

We are open Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, except on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when we're actually open until 7:00 PM during the academic year and then in the summer, we have reduced hours and we're open until 4:30 PM instead of 5:00 PM. On the side. We've included AQR code to the Health and Wellness website that you can scan right now. Umm, That way you'll have the link to the website whenever you need it. And you know, you might not need it today. You may not need it.

Ever. But I want you to scan the QR code and save it in your favorites anyways. Maybe one day a friend or colleague will need it and having it easily accessible will be helpful.

OK, let's talk booking appointments. Health and Wellness is open by appointment only, but we do offer some same day appointments, which I'll talk about in more detail later on. Making an appointment is very easy. Umm, if you have never been to the Health and Wellness Center before, the first step is to register as a new client. You can do this by calling the Health and Wellness line and speaking with one of our colleagues in the administrative team to help you get set up.

You just need to press 5 for mental health and press 2 for medical appointments. If you're already registered, you can call the mental health or medical clinic directly to book an appointment. Just make sure that you have your OHIP or UIP card and your T card ready when you call. Depending on if you're an international student or you're a resident of Ontario, our services will be covered by either OHIP, Provincial Health plans or UIP as well as your.

Fees next slide. So there are a few things you need to know in preparation for your appointment. Again, in person and virtual appointments are available depending on the reason for your visit. If you do have a phone appointment, Please note that incoming calls will show up as private or blocked. So keep an eye out on that and try not to, you know, block those calls because you know, we all know scam calls are happening.

Umm, but at the time of your call, just be aware and make sure you pick up that call. If you have a video appointment, you would receive a link to join by e-mail.

Make sure to join on time and ensure you're in a space with some privacy. And then in addition to bringing your OHIP or UIP card, please also make sure that you bring your T card. So now that we've gone over some basics on who we are and how to access us, we'll go into detail about our three main services, which as I mentioned earlier, our medical services, mental health services, and health promotion services.

Next slide.

So we'll begin with medical services. As a student at U of T, you'll have access to primary care services through the Health and Wellness Center. Our primary care clinic can be found on the 14th floor, 700 Bay St. and to to make an appointment, you would call our main line and use Ext 2.

Next slide, the medical services team includes family physicians, nurses and dietitians. So really anything that you would go to a family doctor for, you can likely get those services. At Health and Wellness. Some of the services that we provide include allergy care, gender affirming care, immunizations and form completion, TB testing, nutrition consultation.

Sexual and reproductive care, such as birth control and abortion counseling. Some services and products are not covered by OHIP or UIP and have associated fees, for example, the completion of some forms and certain immunizations.

This information is available on the Health and Wellness website if you ever need to refer to it, but we do provide free access to care for U of T students. We'd also like encourage students to continue to see their current and existing health and mental health care providers in their own community if they have access for continuity of care.

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In order to more effectively respond to urgent mental health or sorry, urgent physical health concerns, students have Health and Wellness has the same day clinic. This clinic is open Monday to Friday from 1:00 PM to 4:30 PM and you can make an appointment by calling in the morning to be seen that same day appointments focus on your immediate health needs, which can include.

Fever, injury, abdominal pain, infections, things like Utis, UMM, urgent STI concerns, headaches, cough, ear and eye concerns and other urgent physical health issues. These appointments are in person only and the clinic has dedicated physicians for same day clinic. So if you have a regular doctor that you see at Health and Wellness, you might not be able to see them if you're booking into the same day clinic.

Next slide. OK, so let's talk about mental health services. As mentioned earlier, our mental health support can be found on the 12th floor and that includes our psychiatrists, mental health nurses, counselors and psych psychologists. Umm, and you can call our main line and use Ext 5.

Health and Wellness has an Open Access approach to mental health supports that places the student at the center of their own Wellness journey. As you can see in this image, umm, you can use these services in a combination that is right for you. So as your mental health changes, your supports can change with it. We have a short term model for some of the mental health services that we provide, so we are also committed to providing navigation support and community referrals to.

Than your Wellness journey, we're going to go through a few of the options you see on this slide from the clinical services and counseling to the non clinical resources, workshops and programs that are available to you.

Next slide, our most notable service is our same day counseling. If you'd like to speak to a professional about your mental health concerns. Same day counseling appointments provide access to support when you need it available on the same day or within a few days, you can explore concerns, learn about resources, and identify next steps. Umm, one session is often enough to address your needs, but you can also.

A book. Subsequent appointments.

To build on previous sessions or address something new, counselors are available during the hours at the Health and Wellness Center is open between 9:00 to 5:00 PM, Monday to Friday. We also have on location counselors across the Saint George campus at more than 25 sites that are conveniently located throughout campus. Each location or site provides brief counseling for the students registered in that particular faculty department.

Or residence.

So what can you get support on through our counseling appointments? While here are just some examples, umm, you could talk about stress and worry, sadness, relationship or family issues, sexual orientation, gender identity or two, SL, GB, TQ plus topics, trauma and grief, self esteem, body image and eating, addictions and much more.

Health and Wellness is committed to supporting the mental health needs of students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or persons of color with services and programming tailored to them. These services offer all all the supports of a same day counseling appointment and can also provide support for healing from stress related to discrimination, ranging from microaggressions to overt racist behaviors and acts.

BIPOC students can make an appointment for same day or next day Wellness counseling by calling the mental health clinic and asking to see a Wellness counselor who is de dedicated to supporting them.

Velocity, Michael and Dashana are the Wellness counselors who provide these services.

If you prefer to talk to a fellow student, the Peer Support Service is one of the mental health services that Health and Wellness offers that is not clinical or clinician LED. PSS offers all U of T Sanctuary students access to one-on-one drop in non judgmental support. The program is staffed by U of T St. George students who undergo around 50 hours of training before offering support to fellow students.

Our peer supporters are a diverse group of upper year students or masters students who are very familiar with U of T. Through this program, you have access to students like yourselves Talk about concerns like navigating academic and personal life, relationship issues, conflicts, and coping with stress. We understand that there is an overwhelming number of resources available to students, so we made sure that our peer supporters are also trained on how to.

Navigate different resources both on and off campus. It's open for drop in sessions from October to April and the locations can be found on our website.

Beyond clinical and peer support, Health and Wellness also offers U of T students a wide range of skills based and supportive workshops. This slide highlights just some of the free and clinician LED workshops that are offered throughout the year to help students develop coping skills and Wellness practices. Umm, some of the programs include Breathe Well and Sleep Well.

Managing emotions, BIPOC, Wellness, dialogues, and many more.

You can also take free mental health training to identify one fellow students are experiencing a mental health issue and effectively connect them to help and support IAR or identify Assist. REFER is a free online mental health awareness training of a companion workshop called IAR Plus. And then we also have Safe Talk, which teaches you how to identify when someone may be thinking about suicide and connect them to further support.

Be sure to visit the Student Life, Health and Wellness website For more information on these workshops and other workshops that we offer. Next slide.

If you're interested in any of our workshops or trainings, you can register for any upcoming sessions on Folio. The QR code on this slide will take you to all of our workshops that you can sign up for right now. You can also stay up to date with upcoming workshops by subscribing to the Health and Wellness newsletter and our social media, which I'll share in a little bit.

Next slide.

Clearly the options are great, and U of T has a lot of supports available both through health and Wellness and other departments. And we know sometimes it can also feel overwhelming to navigate what options are best for you, especially when you're already juggling a full plate. If you feel overwhelmed trying to figure out what options would be best fit for your needs, there are navigation supports available to you.

Umm, and that are designed to specifically help with this need.

As we mentioned earlier, the peer support service is a great way of finding resources both on and off campus. You can drop in whenever they're open and talk to a trained student who can help you navigate services. But you can also receive direct support with navigating mental health services by booking a same day counseling appointment and requesting to see a Wellness navigator who will help you find campus and community mental health resources.

That fit your needs and meet with you one-on-one to discuss how to access them. Resources will affirm your interests, needs and intersectional identities. They may include social connections, healthcare, counseling, psychotherapy, art based trauma groups, 2SL, GB, TQ, plus community building events or other supports on and off campus.

There are also mental health resources at U of T beyond what's offered directly from health and Wellness. We're highlighting just a few here and these are all virtual or accessible 24/7. So first we have Navi, which is short for Navigator and this is a chat based virtual assistant that provides information on mental health resources as well as other topics including.

Admissions, financial aid, getting involved, careers convocation and more.

All you have to do is click on the icon and tell Navi what you may need help with and it will provide you with helpful information and links to other resources.

If you're looking for immediate counseling support, U of T has U of T Telus Health Student Support, which is a 24 hour support for all U of T students wherever you are in the world, whether you're directly in Canada or you're somewhere internationally. They're available in multiple languages, 35 languages in real time and 146 languages. For appointment book support, you can call or chat with a trained counselor about.

Anything at all and they have knowledge about U of T, so it is a great resource for you to tap into. And then finally, we have the mentalhealth.utoronto.ca website which is a Tri campus resource portal that helps students, faculty and staff find mental health resources and services.

In addition to Health and Wellness and Telus Health student support, there are additional community resources that are very valuable supports as well. We have Good to Talk and Empower Me which offer phone based and virtual mental health support. We have Bounce Back which is a free skills building program that offers coaching programs through phone sessions and online videos with tips.

We have Connects Ontario, which can provide you with information about mental health and addiction supports in the province available over the phone, text or online chat. And if you're looking for in person support in the community, you can check out What's Up Walk In or your local Youth Wellness Hub. Both offer in person mental health support for youth and young adults.

And we'll drop all of these resources into the chat if you'd like to explore them more.

So we've talked about our peer support team and the health education offered at health and Wellness. These programs and some others we'll talk about are supported by our health promotion programs team, a dedicated group of health promotion professionals and student leaders within health and Wellness that are focused on prevention, promotion and non clinical approaches to help for students. The team promotes health and well-being through workshops and.

Student LED peer health, education, outreach and communications, evidence based programming, and collaborations and partnerships. Despite being located at 700 Bay St. we're often on campus running events or providing programming with one of our student teams, so hopefully you'll come across us on campus one day.

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An important part of health and Wellness is our student leaders. While there are many ways to get involved, we'd like to highlight three programs in particular in which students have taken on leadership roles relating to health and Wellness at U of T These three programs are the Peer Support Service, the Healthy U Crew, and the Student Advisory Committee. We've already talked about the Peer Support service, so I'll highlight the other two now.

The Healthy U crews a team of dedicated work studies students who deliver holistic, evidence informed health education programming.

To students to empower them to reach their Wellness goals. Some examples of their programming includes Wellness hikes and art workshops.

UMM, the Student Advisory Committee is a group of students who support the improvement of patient care and student experiences at health and Wellness and generate recommendations on matters that impact student experience at youth.

Please visit the links in the chat if you're interested in learning more or finding out how to get involved.

Next slide. So as you can tell, there's a lot going on to help the one list and many new programs, events and workshops will be announced throughout the year. The best thing we can recommend for keeping up to date with these opportunities is to sign up for the health and Wellness newsletter. We've include AQR link umm to that on the screen right now. And we're also available on social media with student life, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter accounts.

OK, so whether you're curious about improving your overall health, looking to see a health practitioner, seeking counseling, or you need urgent help, the Health and Wellness Center provides opportunities to meet you where you are so you can thrive as you pursue your studies at U of T, We hope that you found this overview of services and supports that U of T helpful. And if you have any questions about the programs and services included at the health.

Center, please feel free to reach out to us via e-mail. Uh, we have some of our contact information here, including our website, our info e-mail, and our phone number, as well as our QR code to take you to our website. Thank you so much everyone for your time and we'll open it up for questions.

So we'll actually have questions at the end. Umm, but thank you so much for that presentation, Amanda, and thank you, Kevin for providing resources in the chat. Umm, I think next will be Jessica with our Accessibility office giving her a presentation.

Yep, that's great. So much.

Alrighty, so I'm really great to be here. My name is Jessica Jung, I'm an advisor from the Accessibility Services team here at the University of Toronto St. George campus. Very glad to be invited by the SGS to speak with you today. Probably the first place to begin, uh, would be our website. Umm, this is our official website, a primary resource for all things related to accessibility supports at U of T St. George campus. And I will drop the link in.

So that if anyone wants to follow along and go through the website information that they are able to do so.

On the website, students will find things like the registration process for accommodations, uh, the various programs and resources offered by our office. The website is regular, uh, regularly updated with all these information, as well as the front desk team's contact information and office hours should they wanna, uh, connect after this webinar about accessibilities. And I strongly encourage uh, students to visit this website just to get a sense of what are the supports available regarding accessibility and accommodations here.

EU of T St. George campus. The next slide is a short video, a brief video that our office put together that provides a good overview of accessibility services, and we'll just take a moment to watch it.

So I hope the video provided a helpful overview. Umm.

An accessibility services, our mission really is to strive to provide equitable access to education for all students with disabilities at here at U of T umm, whether it's health conditions, mental health conditions, diverse ways of learning. And it's helpful to define what we mean by disability because it's a term that encompasses a wide range of conditions and sometimes people equate diagnosis to disability right away.

So here at Accessibility Services, we understand disability as any physical, mental, cognitive, or developmental condition that impacts a person's ability to engage in certain tasks or actions.

And because of this, it could result in what we call functional impairments that make it challenging for students to complete certain academic or daily tasks. So it is as if the video mentioned important to know that a disability can be something permanent like where the condition is ongoing.

And chronic from a very young age. It might be something temporary, such as an injury that affects a person's ability to perform a task in like a very brief period of time. Or disability can be episodic, where the condition may fluctuate, appearing only during certain times or in response to specific triggers. And again, it's important to note that having a diagnosis does not automatically mean a person has a disability in the context of academic accommodation. So any questions about you know what?

Be a good idea for me to reach out to accessibility services like would I would I be like what would help that I can maybe find out what what helpful information may I may I be able to find out Always a great thing to reach out to our office and ask those questions like for example, a condition may not affect your daily tasks or your learning process in any way that would require accommodations that may not require registration but but in the opposite might be true. So it's really good to understand that functional impairments.

And what accessibility services may be able to provide a support for you?

So we collaborate with the university community to identify and remove barriers for students and foster inclusion within learning environments. And our office, the The Picture that You See was taken recently, provides a range of programs, not just advisors working one-on-one with students, but a range of programs for students to build academic skills, cultivate community, and feel empowered to design their university experience.

So accessibility services, what we strive for is a student centered approach to support students academic journey and here's how we work with students to ensure that they have resources and accommodations they need. First, registration for accommodate academic accommodation. So registering with our office to explore what will be the reasonable academic accommodations and support given the disability that the student has.

And then secondly, beyond accommodation, we help students to problem solve and build strategies and toolkits.

To support their academic studies. This is especially true for supports with things like academic technology, adaptive technology and learning strategies. We also believe, just like health and Wellness mentioned, that peer support is crucial for for all university students. That's why we offer also a vibrant peer community where students with accessibility register with accessibility services can connect with other students who share similar experiences.

And that's through weekly dialogues, special events, workshops, uh, peer groups, online, et cetera. I think sometimes there's a confusion that the accessibility services may be only for undergrads. In fact, we support undergraduate, graduate, and professional faculties like medicine and law, including SGS. We also support domestic as well as international students.

One thing to note is that while we do provide accommodations, UH students are expected to meet the same essential academic requirements with accommodations as peers, and accommodations are there to level the playing field while not altering the core academic demands. Also, we hope and always strive to maintain the importance of academic integrity in all of our processes during the accommodation.

So in terms of our office, uh, there are many, uh, small units, uh, uh, uh, of, of services available in terms of who we are, accessibility advisors are those who assess functional impacts and put in place appropriate accommodations.

Advisors also support students in navigating their accommodation throughout their term. And then in terms of the supports, we have adaptive technologies as well as a learning strategist. Adaptive technologies are those who identify technology and software as accommodation as well as assisting in implementing and and and, and them and learning how, how, how helping students to learn how to use recommended technology. Learning strategists offer one-on-one appointments as well as group programming to help students develop strategies.

For things like time management, note taking, test taking, and other academic skills, especially when it comes to graduate studies, there are things like grad productivity and writing group that are geared towards specifically for students from who are completing their grad studies. We also have peer mentors and peer advisors. Mentors are at the upper year students matched with new students for ongoing support and advisors are upper year slash graduate student that provide these check insurance and drop in.

For students and lastly, we have our front desk team, the administrative team that includes the intake coordinator, accommodation administrator as well as a front desk staff who are scheduling appointments and dealing with all things related to documentation.

So let's go through the details of the accommodation process a little bit.

First thing is the registration with our accessibility services is ongoing throughout the year, but to be able to place and put the necessary accommodations for the upcoming semester academic year starting September, we do have a registration deadline and that is Monday, July 14th, 5:00 PM. Any information regarding registration deadline, please check out our website. For each semester there are specific deadlines to be able to put accommodation in place for the upcoming.

In terms of a registration, there are three-step process. So the first step is typically umm first step is obtaining required documentation, typically a certificate of disability that is completed by students healthcare provider. In some cases students will have a full psychoeducational or neuropsychological assessment report to submit and these documentations help our office to understand the impact of disability and.

For accessibility services to explore appropriate accommodations, Step 2 is to complete our online student intake form. This form is designed to gather more specific information about students needs as a student from the students perspective. So it is completed by the student and the questions will help the accessibility services better understand this issue student situation such as challenges that students face in their studies and will guide the accessibility service office or services office in matching.

Student with the most appropriate accessibility advisor. There are many of us who work with our students, so the online student intake form really help us to match the student with the right advisor with the right UMM support. And then step three of the registration process is attending the intake appointment. Once all the required forms are submitted, the front desk team will schedule an intake appointment within Accessibility Advisor. And this appointment is an opportunity for students to discuss their needs in more detail before creating accommodation.

So one important piece that we need to share is, uh, the duty to accommodate. The Ontario Human Rights Code guarantees the right to equal treatment in education without discrimination on the grounds of disability. And the University of Toronto has a duty to accommodate and is committed to considering accommodations when the accommodations are requested by a student.

When we become aware of a student's accommodation needs in a reasonable time and when accommodation do not 'cause undue hardship to the University and request for accommodation are considered in good faith. We trust that students are seeking accommodations based on genuine needs and that we treat all requests with respect and seriousness.

So, as mentioned, UMM all students must meet the same essential require academic requirements and academic integrity is always upheld. What? While students are responsible for demonstrating competency and completing all course components, our Office Accessibility Services work with students, faculty and staff to ensure equal opportunity for UH education, and the accommodation plans can be modified based on program needs and changing circumstances.

And creating accommodation plans can involve all of the followings that you see on the slide. We obviously want to really review the medical documentation and the student intake form that students provided as documentation as well as information completed during the intake interview. We also consult with university staff, faculty and service about the program requirements and etcetera. We also think about academic integrity, core competencies, the rules and regulations that are existing at the university.

Also important piece is as the video highlighted is part of the accommodation process. The information about diagnosis or umm, anything related to disability that the, the people didn't know, don't need to know are not disclosed. So one very important part of the accommodation plan is abiding by the Freedom of Information and protection of privacy app as well as a provincial guidelines, uh, such as.

Ontario Human Rights Commission.

So a little bit about that core competency. What we do is to create effective accommodation plans. We rely on several key sources of information to ensure that the accommodations align with the core competencies and learning outcomes of the students, courses or program. So things like course syllabi that provides detailed information about the objectives of the course as well as the assessment for each course. Things like program or course descriptions that gives a broadview. Overview of what?

Perspective from students throughout the academic journey, things like program handbook that is outlining the structures and requirements specific to specific to the graduate program. Things like professional accreditation boards and colleges, uh, that set standards defining the core competencies required for specific fields, especially in regulated professions and, and the accessibility services Also meet with faculty program advisors and other academic staff one-on-one to help clarify specific course expectations and ensure that.

The accommodations are going to be aligning appropriately with the uh, with, with these uh, following elements.

At the end of the intake process, students will typically receive a letter accommodation, what we call LOA. This letter outlines a specific accommodations that should be implemented to support the students learning.

And while these recommendations are intended to be reasonably implemented, there can always be further dialogue between the accessibility advisor and the instructor or supervisor if additional clarification or adjustments are needed.

So creating an accessibility learning accessible learning environment is a shared responsibility. Here's a breakdown of the roles and responsibility just to summarize. So when we think about accessibility services on the left hand side of the table, ensuring the university is meeting its duty to accommodate under the Ontario Human Rights Code. Reviewing the documentation provided by the healthcare provider regarding disability of the student as part of determining students academic accommodation providing.

Support problem solving and referral for disability related issues and ensuring that we collaborate with staff, faculty and students when concerns arise with students accommodation. And then on the faculty side, it's about participating in discussions and collaboration with the accessibility services as well as the student when necessary to structure an appropriate accommodation plan. And faculty instructors are are asked to provide accommodation as outlined on the letter of accommodation as appropriate and work with the student.

Advisor to problem solve issue issues arise, faculty instructor, Instructors are all also will direct students to register with Accessibility Services if an accommodation request is made without the student being registered as well. Making effort to develop and demonstrate an inclusive learning environment and on the student side in the middle of the table. Students will submit prepared documentation to Accessibility Services during registration process, monitor accommodation plan and notify advisors immediately.

There are concerns proactively communicate such accommodation requests and beware of deadlines and administration sort of protocols to be able to let's say register for test accommodations and things like that.

So as we conclude, I want to highlight some key resources available, especially for graduate students through accessible accessibility services. The first one is the graduate student Handbook from our office. This handbook is a valuable resource for navigating the accommodations process and understanding the various services and supports available at U of T.

The handbook covers key topics including, again, how to register with accessibility services. What are some academic accommodation that might be available?

After registration, students responsibility in accessing and utilizing accommodation and much more. And it's a comprehensive guide designed specifically to ensure that students have the information they need to make the most of the supports available. And I strongly encourage students to check this out and and keep it as a handy reference. And I will drop the link in the chat right now.

The next resource that's also equally important is the UMM, the Demystifying Academic Accommodation. It's APDF that contains a lot of great UMM resources to get a better, deeper understanding of academic accommodation.

We'll drop a link in the chat.

And lastly, there is a documentation that was recently created that's called Disclosure and Accommodation Guide for the Workplace. This guide is particularly useful for graduate students. It covers essential topics such as how to disclose accommodation needs in the workplace, key strategies for managing accommodation needs in the workplace. Accessibility Services created these resources because we do not manage employee related accommodations.

Including those for TA teaching assistantships. If graduate students are seeking accommodations in the work related role, such as ATA, students would need to reach out to the human resources or the appropriate office to handle that handles employee accommodation within the university. But this resource really provides a good overview of what that process could look like and also what it means to to think about disclosing accommodation needs.

All right, so to finish up, uh, I, I, if you have any questions or need support regarding accessibility, please refer to the resources and information shared during this presentation, but also feel free to reach out to our front desk team directly through the provided contact information.

And we encourage incoming students to explore our websites and handbook for accommodations and support and always think of the front desk team as the go to if there are any questions they want to hash out in terms of registration process with accommodation office or accessibility office.

Alright, I think this is it for me.

Play.

Thanks so much, Jessica, for that presentation and thanks for providing the resources in the chat. So if there are any questions, you can put those in the chat right now. And or if not now, if you think of any later, you can always e-mail Jessica or the Accessibility Services office at accessibility.services@utoronto.ca. So I'll just leave that open for a minute or so in case anyone has any questions.

Umm, if not, we can umm, move on.

Hi everyone, I think it's my turn.

Umm, give me one second. Can someone just give me like a thumbs up or let me know that you can see my slides and you can hear me and see me OK?

Sure. So I guess there won't be any questions for Jessica Umm. But thank you again for that presentation, Jessica. And we can move on now to Aziza, who was with the Center for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision. And yes, we can hear and see you, Ziza, and we can see the slides.

Thank you. Sorry I started talking. I thought maybe you were waiting for me, so I thought I'll just, I'll jump in.

But that's all right. Umm, you can go ahead.

OK. Thank you. So I'll get started.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Aziza Kayan. I'm the director of the Center for Graduate Mentorship and Supervision. It's a lot easier just known as CGMS. I have Lauren's name on the slide because there is just the two of us. We're very small but very mighty team.

So if you do reach out to us, we send us an e-mail. All of our contact information is going to be on the last slide. It's only going to go to Lauren and I Lauren is just not here because she has the day off. So she's having a lot more fun than the rest of us. I mean, but we're having fun too, so I shouldn't say that.

It's a little bit about CGMS. We're actually a pretty new service. So if you've never heard of us, that's OK. We're not as established as like the student life folks and accessibility Services. We're just a little over three years old.

And we're actually housed within SGS, so we're not housed within student life. And we're pretty unique service because we actually work with everybody on campus. So we don't just support grad students who work with faculty. We work with staff chairs, product coordinators, really anybody who in some capacities involved in the supervisory relationship. So to be a little bit more specific with a very sort of like.

The general supportive framework that we have to support students or grad students who are in a research stream program, because we do focus on the supervisory relationship and.

Our mandate is to support successful mentorship and supervisory relationships. Sort of school of thought we operate from is we don't view a successful supervisor relationship as one that is absent of challenges and difficulties. Sort of expect that things will be difficult at times. The framework that we like to use is that relationships in general just really tricky if you think about dating or friends or.

For me, I can't say for you, but like family, your neighbors, at some point you.

You might not get along with somebody or you misunderstand them, or there's just something that's making the relationship not fit very well. That's just normal. But we want students and faculty to feel like you have the right skills and the confidence to be able to navigate any interpersonal challenges that do come up. And we want people to feel like they have a comfortable and a safe and a private space to be able to talk about those things and to learn some of those skills. So if you do want to reach out to us, again, we're confidential, so we don't talk to your super.

Are about anything that you bring to us, we tell folks you can name them. Sometimes it's helpful to know the name just to know if there's maybe a pattern of students coming forward about somebody. But if we feel like something is outside of our scope or maybe not the right people or need to loop and like some other folks like accessibility services or the department, for instance, we make that recommendation. So we're pretty clear about what our scope is and where we start to maybe go outside of that scope and we'll say this is the people that we think we should invite into the conversation.

We think we should invite your supervisor into the conversation. We will also say that. But balls are always in your court. You let us know when you think you'd like to do that. Sometimes, you know, students are pretty clear. They say, yes, let's involve all these people right away. This is time sensitive. I need to get the ball rolling. We say cool, like, let's figure out the brainstorm how we can do that together.

And sometimes students, you know, they say, I need to take some time to think about this, give me a few months, and then come back six months later. And they say, yeah, I know things aren't looking too great. And.

I need a little bit of help. So, so let's maybe look some people into this. So, so if you do reach out to us inside of our scope, we'll make those referrals. But otherwise it's confidential. And what we usually do is we spend about, you know, average about an hour meeting together. We'll give you the microphone, you tell us what's going on. What are some individual factors that you think are contributing to the situation? We'll ask lots of questions and then we'll hopefully determine.

A pathway or we'll go over all the pathways that we think you have access to.

So we take a very person centered approach. So we really follow yearly like we make recommendations and we give advice and maybe we give advice and recommendations based on what we see in all the cases that we work on because really we work on like hundreds of cases. We're a pretty busy office. But ultimately that is up to you. That ball is always in your court. We like this idea that, you know, we have expertise, but you are ultimately the expert of the supervisor relationship and who you are as a person and.

The faculty member that you're working with.

So some of the main services that we offer is mostly coaching. When I say hundreds of cases, those are sort of hundreds of one-on-one appointments that we offer. So if you do reach out to us, you're probably going to meet with Lauren. Sometimes I use students, but usually it's Lauren meeting with students and I usually meet with faculty members and we'll again, we'll just go over like what's going on? What makes sense to do to move forward with.

We really encourage students. So if you go to our website, you'll see we kind of market ourselves as a conflict resolution center, which we are, but that sounds.

It sounds a little heavy and it has like a bit of a negative connotation attached to it. We want folks to come to us if at the onsets and at a baseline, they feel like they don't have the best communication skills. Or if you feel like you're really new to supervision, you're new to grad school, you've never done this before. You meet a lot of students who are, I mean, for me, they're kind of babies. They're 21. They've never done a grad program before. They're coming straight from an undergraduate degree.

They come to us and they say I don't know what I'm doing. Like I have no idea what this is supposed to look like. I'm so overwhelmed.

I don't know what's reasonable to ask for or what to say no to. I don't know what's reasonable in terms of what's being asked of me and supervision. Help me out. Or you say, you know, I spent the most formative years of my life in a pandemic. I didn't get to have a job. I didn't get to develop all the communication skills or sort of team working skills that I would have otherwise developed. Please help me develop some skills and some tools will even help people write emails. There's no shame in that. I help faculty. I help chairs of departments.

You really don't take like a judgmental approach or like a blaming approach. You want people to feel like they have control and they can take responsibility where they reasonably should be taking responsibility. And then you put on your research tab, we give you some skills and some new strategies to try in your relationship to see how it goes. And so sometimes students say, well, what if it goes wrong?

We say it's not a bad thing if you try something different in the relationship and it doesn't go well. It's just more information that we have to work with and it's not great, but it helps us move forward in a bit more of an informed way and that's OK. We do lots of system navigation. This is just it kind of comes organically through conversation. Again, if you think something's a little bit outside of our scope, we'll make those referrals or we'll connect you to the right people.

Case manager is more So what Lauren does. We work very closely with the vice team students at SGS.

So Lauren helps John Peaver Professor John Peaver do some case management with some more escalated cases that come to our office that require more of a of a team approach with multiple offices also for mediation and facilitated conversations. This is not something we take lightly. Mediation is a very.

It's a long process. It usually takes a few weeks to like a few months to get through, but it's always an option. If we don't think it's the most appropriate thing to pursue, we'll make that recommendation. If you feel like it is appropriate, we'll talk about it. We do a lot of prep and a lot of coaching before we actually mediate a conversation between a faculty member and a student. We do them often enough, but they are a lot of work. So I do tell people if you want to do it, think about it, and then you let us know if you feel like you have the.

To do something like that, and of course everybody has to be, you know, willing and able to do it. The voluntary process as well. We also offer workshops and I'll show you some examples in a couple slides. So really quickly there's some examples for, you know, why somebody might come to CG Mass. There's a lot of reasons. This is very nuanced. This is a very high level overview of why somebody might come to us. It really doesn't capture the sort of complexities, again, because we're dealing with relationships and humans at a baseline.

Complicated. We're weird and we don't communicate very well and I'm actually amazed that we don't brawl more than we do. It's pretty phenomenal. So there's a lot of reasons why somebody might come to us, but this is sort of a high level overview So very often actually students will come to us saying, you know, dear CGMS, I can't get a hold of my supervisor, they're not available and sometimes. So there's a couple of categories and I don't mean this in a judgmental way, but sometimes it's a little unreasonable and sometimes it's very reasonable so very.

Would be, you know, I'm working with somebody now actually who they haven't heard from your supervisor in a few months. That is not supposed to happen. It's been 3 months. It's not OK. They're trying to move forward. That doesn't usually happen. So usually it means there's something going on and that's a situation where remember I was saying we have a scope practice. That's where we actually should move in the department. There's been a few situations where this has come up or someone just can't get a hold of their supervisor. Clearly there's something going on.

And then we will connect with the department. Usually the responses, oh, shoot, this person's actually on a medical leave. Somebody just dropped the ball and letting all of their students know, probably because they're, you know, they're Abd, they're all but dissertation or whatever the acronym is. And they're just in a writing phase. So they don't see their supervisor all that often anyways. But usually the department is pretty quick to like getting things moving so the person can get support moving forward. So what I mean by unreasonable.

But sometimes we hear from students more often than anything where they say, I emailed my supervisor at like 6:00 PM on a Friday and I had a grant application due at 9:00 AM on a Monday and they didn't answer. I lost $5000 because I didn't get my application in on time and my supervisor's terrible and they don't want me to succeed. And we say, well, that's probably not the case. They probably don't hate you. They probably don't want you to fail.

What likely is the problem is not your supervisor or you. So we focus on the behavior and the situation, not the people.

The issue is communication. You never actually sat down with each other at the beginning of the relationship to say, hey, when are you available or when would you like me to send you something for editing? When would you like a draft for an application versus my actual thesis and my PhD work? Do you want a week's notice? Do you want two weeks? Is sending it on Friday for a Monday OK? The answer is probably going to be no. So we'll work with students to develop some communication strategies and like how to have.

Conversation like a really respectful way with both respectful of you and your supervisor because at the end of the day, they're also human. They also make mistakes we wanted to feel like.

Your your, your needs are being hurt and being next. And we're not going into a conversation too hot where somebody will inevitably be and feel quite defensive about the conversation. So we want it to feel like a successful conversation really quickly. So some other reasons why somebody might come.

Again, to somebody new to research, they don't really know what their roles and responsibilities are. Or maybe they're not new to research, but they did a grad degree in like a different country, different institution.

And they just don't know, like the academic culture of U of T, we can help you familiarize yourself with that. But very often I'm actually with faculty who are concerned about, you know, the well-being and the mental health of their student. They just don't know how to support them. What we usually tell students as well as if there's not really an expectation that your faculty supervisor supports you with a mental health concern or an accessibility concern because they're just not experts. That's what accessibility is for and like health and Wellness.

You know, there's like certain things obviously they can do to like point you in the right direction, but they usually just don't have the skills or the capacity. So very often they'll come to me and they'll say I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to help this person. So I'll help them navigate that a little bit better. And very often we may be the chairs who are trying their best to.

Navigate a challenge between a supervisor and a student and they're just kind of they've exhausted all the options and skills that they have and they'll come to us to sort of help the situation move forward as best as possible. This is just an example of some workshops that we offer. So we offer a lot of faculty workshops just because of the nature of the work that we do. It's not because we're trying to support faculty more than students, but we have two fun student workshops that we offer in the fall.

And the winter turns, so this is probably going to be offered like September, October.

If you're really new to U of T, the best practices and recommendations 1 is pretty good. We go over like students and faculty guidelines for supervision. Here's an example or here's some links. Let me actually just put our website.

Link in the chat.

If you want to contact us, you can also find all of this on the CGMS website. I encourage you to read the supervision guidelines for students. I think they're really helpful if you really feel like you don't have time.

I would say prioritize your unit or your department handbook. You should have it's either titled A handbook or there's like a series of web pages most departments and units have where you get very departmental units specific information.

I always say to students, prioritize that so you can familiarize yourself with like very specific and nuanced expectations. But I do think if you're really bored, you'd like something else to read. And I know grad students are usually really bored and they have nothing to read. You should read the supervision guidelines for students. There's also a faculty version. So if you are curious about what the institution is suggesting your supervisors do, I think this is a good option to consider as well. Just helps you feel more informed about the relationship.

Expectations. So if you do want to reach out to us again, our emails, CGMS that you toronto.ca you're either going to meet with Lauren or myself, probably Lauren, though we can meet in person or virtually. We try to be really accommodating with folks and we'll spend some time unpacking what's going on, figuring out like what are the challenges, what are the pathways available to you, Where can we support, where can maybe somebody else support and then we'll just go from there.

If you happen to make phone calls still, you can give us a call.

Sometimes students call us because they want to remain anonymous or not an anonymous service. We do have to get a name, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, fortunately for us, maybe unfortunately for you, but we cannot have you remain anonymous. We do need a name in order to work with you, but you're still welcome to make a phone call. And that phone call doesn't go to everybody at SGS, just goes to Warren. So you're welcome to leave us a voicemail there as well. We're located at 6563 Saint George, so we're pretty accessible if you're on Saint George, St. George campus.

UTSC, We do have office hours, UTSC once a month, so you can always ask us about that as well. But that's everything. So I don't know if there's any questions. I don't see anything in the chat. I don't know if people have the ability in the system to put their microphone on, but I am open to answering any questions that people might have.

Sure.

Probably.

So I'll just leave it open for like another few minutes or so in case anybody does have questions for Aziza. And thank you again, Aziza, for that wonderful presentation. Umm, And if you don't want to add any questions in the chat, you can always e-mail the CGMS office at CGMS at utoronto.ca.

Put that in chat.

I take it when there's no questions it just means I explained it very clearly.

You did do a great job explaining.

It was just extra thorough.

All right, I'm assuming the questions.

Yep, maybe we, yeah, we could just end it here, I think. But umm, again, I just wanted to thank our present presenters for showing their time and expertise with us today. I really appreciate you all for umm, coming to present and for all the attendees as well. And just a reminder that today's presentation recording will be available on the same registration page, umm, that you used to sign up. And this will be available by the end of next week.

And umm yeah, that concludes this webinar, so I hope everyone has a nice day and enjoys the weekend.

Good. Goodbye.