Samantha Corrington

Biography

Samantha Corrington is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the School of Child and Youth Care at the University of Victoria whose work bridges relational practice and pedagogy with practice-informed teaching. A graduate of UVic’s Child and Youth Care undergraduate program and the Marital and Family Therapy graduate program at Nova Southeastern University, she brings more than 30 years of experience across child, youth, family, and community-serving contexts to her teaching, mentorship, scholarship, and professional practice.

A Registered Clinical Counsellor with the British Columbia Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC), Samantha continues to engage in counselling and community-based practice alongside her academic role, bringing current practice knowledge and experience into her teaching and mentorship. Her professional practice includes counselling and community-based work alongside Indigenous children, youth, families, and communities, including many years supporting survivors and families impacted by the legacy of residential schools and continued colonial violence. These experiences continue to shape her commitments to relational accountability, reflexivity, social justice, and ethical practice.

Samantha approaches the teaching space as a relational and dialogical process in which students are invited to critically examine themselves, their relationships, and their responsibilities within the complex systems in which they practice. Her scholarly and pedagogical interests include relational pedagogy, family-centred and systems practice, online and experiential teaching and learning, and socially just approaches within Child and Youth Care education and practice.

Prior to joining the School of Child and Youth Care as a full-time faculty member in 2018, Samantha served the university as a Continuing Sessional Lecturer and has a long history in direct practice, leadership, counselling, community-based programming, and nonprofit administration across British Columbia and South Florida. Her professional background spans residential care, outreach and youth work, family preservation, child protection, community organizing, program development, family counselling, and nonprofit leadership. This breadth of experience continues to inform her pedagogical approach, which emphasizes praxis, reflexivity, relational accountability, and the integration of lived practice wisdom into professional education.

Working with students across British Columbia, Canada, and internationally, Samantha is known for creating deeply relational learning environments that bridge the essential messiness of theory and practice. Her teaching emphasizes relational connection, intentional application of theory, vulnerability, and the need for ongoing consideration of power and privilege in various spaces as foundations for professional practice. She is particularly interested in the possibilities of bringing relational pedagogy and practice into virtual learning environments, creating online spaces that foster connection, community, reflexivity, and meaningful engagement despite geographical distance. She sees this as a commitment to her ongoing journey of decolonizing practice and the value of students’ right to “learn in place.”

Her work contributes to ongoing conversations within Child and Youth Care regarding relational pedagogy, the integration of lived practice wisdom into professional learning, and creating relational learning spaces online. Through teaching, mentorship and service, she is committed to supporting the development of reflective practitioners capable of meaningful, ethical, and responsive engagement with children, youth, families, and communities.

On a note of lived experience informing practice, Samantha points to her family and children that humble her and remind her that the learning never stops and to not take everything so seriously…. MOOOOM!