Local students benefit from after-school outreach

Just over two years ago UVic’s Faculty of Education learned that an anonymous graduate of Victoria College, a former teacher, had left the faculty an estate worth $700,000. The only instructions—spend it to enhance the education of children.For the past year the Centre for Outreach Education (CORE) has been doing just that. Created after a year of careful consideration, focus groups and idea generation, CORE’s outreach programs have both welcomed children to campus and taken UVic graduate students into the community to assist youngsters where they live.

“We’ve created a 10-year budget for CORE sufficient to run our current programs, but we’d love to expand even further,” says the faculty’s Associate Dean Administration Jillian Roberts. “It would be pretty exciting if we could get other donors to contribute to the centre as well.”

CORE currently offers several programs: CORE Club provides after-school tutoring on campus three times a week to elementary students; through Tools for Success, offered through the Victoria Epilepsy and Parkinson’s Centre, UVic grad and undergraduate students offer children with epilepsy tutoring assistance; undergraduate Teacher Education Program students offer Songhees First Nation students intensive tutoring in their community through CORE Mobi#8804; and the CORE grants program offers after-school enhancement in drama and music in local schools. CORE also works with UVic’s CanAssist to offer a venue for InclusionWorks!, which provides young people with developmental disabilities opportunities to expand their life skills and consider next steps after completing public school education.

Over 100 local students have participated in CORE programs during the past year and 35 UVic graduate and undergraduate students have gained valuable experience through their participation. Although CORE does not have a research focus (“the steering committee wants it to be service-oriented”) a UVic PhD candidate has expressed interest in conducting graduate research as part of a practicum with InclusionWorks!.

Janice, a mom dropping off her son recently for CORE Club, described the program as “great, absolutely amazing,” adding that her son had improved his math grade by a full letter grade after the club’s spring session and had shown further improvement this fall in his other subjects. “He’s so excited by CORE Club that his sister is now coming too.” [I can add a second endorsement here if I get to speak to another parent.]

CORE Club and CORE Mobile [what about Tools for Success?] will be offered for the next two years, but CORE’s steering committee has a mandate to solicit new program ideas annually. “The CORE grants program is driven by the interests of the faculty members,” says Roberts. “Next year’s focus may change depending on who applies for a grant.” The deadline for applications is Jan. 15 and CORE grant applications and funding information can be found online at www.core.uvic.ca/getinvolved.htm.

Roberts would love to see other donors build on that initial anonymous gift to enlarge CORE’s budget and allow for new programs and the expansion of existing ones. “We have the capacity to extend CORE Club into Friday and Saturday, and we could expand CORE Mobile to include more First Nations communities and inner-city schools where families face difficulties bringing their children to us,” she says. “We have all this expertise in the faculty, and UVic and the community would be a better place if we were able to share it.”