3 Tips for 7th-Year Services in GEAR UP
By Becky Pincince
Alma Olivas Aguilar of Greely GEAR UP in Colorado and Corinne Nielson of Kansas Kids @ GEAR UP are both preparing for 7th-year students, and recently we sat down with them to discuss what practical steps new grantees should take. They suggested designing the right network of support, strategically placing programming, and staying motivated with small wins.
Design Your Network of Support
A good network is essential to servicing 7th-year students, starting with a great internal team. Strong professionals can be found from many backgrounds — not just people who have always been social workers, teachers, and counselors, but those who began in another field like business and then eventually decided to follow their passion instead.
Your team will then need good partners — this means people in the colleges your students usually attend, but also members of the community who are willing to tackle challenges with the team. Corinne and her team have established good relationships with several financial aid offices and staff members in universities around the state. With Wichita State, they even get early warning notifications if a student is failing a course. As far as members of the community go, she cited a lawyer in their network who stepped up to offer free legal assistance when a student needed help.
Having experts from different fields in your network allows you to be flexible and bring different perspectives to the table. This is especially important when it comes to helping students — there is no cookie-cutter solution to helping them deal with their obstacles, and a diverse team will have more to offer.
Be Strategic with Placement of Programming
7th Year is unique because you must make sure you support the students, but also give them space to learn to advocate for themselves. Alma and Corinne have found that ensuring students know you are still accessible even during college’s ups and downs is good, because then they learn how to reach out for help. Even the students who act like they don’t need you should be offered support. Finding ways to keep them engaged is important — this can be with scholarships, scholarship application parties, financial aid workshops, and FAFSA nights. Providing different ways to keep in contact, whether it’s using technology or meeting face-to-face, makes the team easily accessible.
For first-time 7th-year organizers, Corinne and Alma recommend looking at where the majority of your students are going to college. This allows you to place offices strategically and make the best of your resources, because it’s not always possible to hire new people or to relocate the current staff. Learn more by attending conferences, reading other GEAR UP blogs, and organizing grantee get-togethers. Take the time to brainstorm resources that could be helpful for certain students. For example, Alma recommends NACADA as a useful tool for helping first-generation college students.
Stay Motivated with Small Wins
Seeing students reach big milestones can be difficult. The key is to focus on small wins, such as a student getting to the point of being able to set personal goals or a student who is easily emotionally overwhelmed being able to sit through class. These smaller goals help build towards bigger ones, so you must keep the light at the end of the tunnel in mind. Helping them one-on-one and seeing them reach their goals is exciting and a great source of motivation.
Another good way to stay motivated is to fall back on the community. Draw strength from your shared challenges and goals, because everybody is doing this work to make a difference, and you are not alone. The staff needs to have their well-being attended to as much as the students do, otherwise the work can be overwhelming. Corinne keeps a collection of inspirational, uplifting quotes for the days she needs it. Alma remembers that there is no gain without pain. Staying aware of social justice issues and reading books such as 8 to Great: The Powerful Process for Positive Change by MK Mueller helps them remember why they are doing the work in the first place.
