A Course-based Qualitative Inquiry into CYC Students Mental Health Reflections

Abstract

Our course-based qualitative research project explores how Child and Youth Care (CYC) students have benefited from being in the program regarding their mental health. The CYC program can be personally exhausting and stressful. This is the case because a primary goal of the CYC program is to engage students in a process of self-awareness and self-discovery. The classroom atmosphere pushed you to be open a vulnerable. All this can cause mental health to become present in students lives. As 4th year students that have benefitted from the program regarding our own mental health we thought it would be a great opportunity as part of this course-based research project to explore how other students have also benefitted from being in the program regarding their mental health. We chose to do a semi-structured focus group with past and present CYC students where we discussed how the CYC program has helped them with their mental health. The themes we pulled from our thematic analysis consisted of; having strong relationships with the professors, the ability to be creative and play in class activities and projects, the opportunities for networking and building on their education, and so on. The discussion resulted in some potential growth for the CYC program as a whole. Although there were some limitations with time and participants we were still able to carry out meaningful and impactful research.

Faculty Mentor: Gerard Bellefeuille

Department: Child and Youth Care