Participating institutions emphasized the need for colleges and institutes to adopt holistic approaches for counselling Aboriginal students with a view to providing a friendly and safe environment in which students can express and develop their Aboriginal identity. Elders often have a big role to play in personal counselling services and activities, and colleges view campus cultural activities such as sweat lodges, Pow wows and Aboriginal awareness days as ways to create a welcoming environment for Aboriginal learners, which complements personal counselling efforts. A few colleges also indicated that they enlist the help of the community organizations to complement their personal counselling services, in the areas such as family, addictions and financial counselling. At smaller colleges and institutes faculty also have an important role in personal counselling. This is the case for Nunavut Arctic College where because of the small student teacher ratio, faculty is encouraged to develop a working relationship with students, and consequently students would often feel more comfortable asking their instructors for advice.
Almost 80 percent of participating institutions indicated that they offer financial counselling services. This type of counselling includes one on one counselling with college or institute counselling staff, connections with First Nations Bands for funding and support, and financial management workshops on campus often with the help of banks or financial organizations from the community.
Over half of respondent mainstream institutions offer anti-discrimination counselling to help students deal with racism and diversity issues. Certainly the Aboriginal cultural activities described above would also help complement anti-discrimination counselling services offered and the services of Elders are also very important for the effective delivery of these types of counselling services.
In consideration of the barriers Aboriginal learners face when they enrol in post-secondary programs, in addition to the more standard assessment and counselling services described above, the survey and interviews asked colleges and institutes to identify other types of support services available for Aboriginal learners which help with learners’ retention and persistence in college/institute programs.
Respondent institutions reported that they are offering different services aimed at facilitating Aboriginal learners’ participation and success in programs. The chart below shows the top ten types of services offered by both Aboriginal and mainstream institutions which participated in this study.