By Lucas-Matthew Marsh

On Sept. 16, the Toronto Metropolitan Association of Part-time Students (TMAPS) released a new online guide for student caregivers. 

The Pregnancy, Caregiving & Parenting Academic Support Guide is the first resource of its kind at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), offering information on accessibility services, childcare and community organizations. 

According to Hermela Geremew, TMAPS’ vice president of equity and change, the idea came from student caregivers themselves, who raised concerns about the challenges they face navigating higher education.

“We had to bring attention to their experiences and begin addressing the barriers they face,” Geremew wrote in an email to The Eyeopener. TMAPS met with current and former student caregivers to ask what support they needed most from the university.

“Hearing these experiences helped me better understand the challenges they face,” Geremew wrote. “I want to keep hearing from students and use what we learn to advocate for changes that directly benefit them.” 

Shanice Harris, a former TMAPS volunteer and alumni of TMU’s social work program, spoke at the launch meeting TMAPS hosted as one of the panelists. 

In the interview with The Eye, Harris said these kinds of resources would have made a world of difference at the start of her degree.

“I did feel isolated,” Harris admitted. “I felt removed, like I shouldn’t have been where I am.”

While TMU doesn’t collect data on student caregivers, a 2011 study published in the Canadian Journal of Higher Education found that 11 to 16 per cent of Canadian post-secondary students are caregivers for at least one child under 18.

Harris, already a mother of a four-year-old, learned she was expecting her second child during her first semester. While most professors were understanding, Harris recalled one male-presenting professor telling her she should have “planned better.”

“That did impact how I asked for help later on, which impacted my studies,” Harris said.

Senate Policy 167 is supposed to protect students like Harris and offer short-term accommodations. But Harris remembers being told that professors could decide how and when to apply it.

The new guide mentions Policy 167 as the policy student caregivers can reference. It also indicates how they can take advantage of academic considerations and receive accommodations such as deadline extensions or make-up assessments.

“I had to take requests to withdraw, in order for me to get my grades back on track because of this initial [setback],” Harris said.

Olivia McIntosh, another panelist at the meeting is a Chang School graduate and the former president at TMAPS. She believes being a caregiver should not be something that makes “pursuing an education become unnecessarily difficult.” 

“Student caregivers deserve to feel that they belong in the institution just as much as any other student,” McIntosh wrote in an email to The Eye. 

Katherine McCallum, a second-year occupational health and safety student at TMU, attended the launch meeting. McCallum said she often feels she is navigating life as both a student and a parent on her own.

On the day McCallum spoke to The Eye, she said she was off to write a test, pick up her six-year-old son from school, cook dinner, drop him off at capoeira and somewhere in between, fit in the interview.

As a student caregiver, McCallum said planning can only go so far. “Kids get sick,” McCallum said. “A lot! Especially when they are young. If we don’t have any support around us to help out at the last minute, choices must be made, and it will always be my child.”

Somehow, McCallum manages to hold it all together.

“I am proud of my excellent grades so far and hope that I am setting a good example for my son,” McCallum said. Harris said she wants TMU to understand that asking for help is “not always easy.”

The guide offers a list of on and off-campus support that student caregivers can rely on, from Academic Advising, Childhood Resource Consultation Program to the private infant feeding room.

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code, student caregivers are protected from discrimination based on family status. TMU states on its website that it is required to grant equal access to education to all students, “regardless of their sex (including pregnancy), family status (parent/child caregiving responsibilities).”

Geremew said TMAPS will keep working with student caregivers to update and expand the guide. 

“We want to do it all by ourselves,” Harris said. “We want to show we’re like the super mom or the super dad or the super caregiver. When we do fall short and need that help, TMU and administration [need] to be readily available to support that and not make us feel like we’re left alone.”