Montreal City Mission

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Charitable Organizations & Foundations

Description

These theoretical considerations provide a context for our discussion on the evolution of the empowerment model at Montreal City Mission (MCM) and on the development of an empowering practicum for social work students. Montreal City Mission is a non-profit social justice ministry of the United Church of Canada that endeavors to provide vital services to populations who are at an economic and social disadvantage. The population of service users includes refugees and the homeless, as well as low-income individuals and families in downtown Montreal who individually lack resources to improve the quality of their lives. Through several program areas, MCM, in partnership with community and ecumenical groups, students, and volunteers, develops long-term solutions to problems of poverty and exclusion. These program areas include refugee work, a summer day camp for low-income and special needs children, social housing initiatives for the homeless, community economic development, and social advocacy, as well as student education.

Founded in 1910 and adopted as a ministry of the United Church of Canada in 1957, MCM has undergone a rapid transformation in the last thirty years. MCM's organizational structure has evolved to incorporate social justice values brought to the fore in the sixties and seventies by individuals, social advocacy groups, and social movements. By adopting a collegial management model, MCM has been able to transform its internal structure so that it is compatible with empowerment-based initiatives.

With only three full-time staff, student interns (six to ten a year) have been an essential human resource at MCM since the 1980s and over the years staff has worked to develop procedural standards to ensure their integration in the organization. Those standards have in turn allowed MCM to define and plan the student field placement, developing it into a separate program area. Students from various disciplines are quickly incorporated into the staff team through on-site orientation, and are encouraged to contribute and participate to the best of their ability. Since the 1990s, the field practicum for social work students has become a boon to the development of MCM's program areas, in large part because students are expected to contribute actively to programs, policies, and guidelines. The field practicum has incorporated both field instruction procedures as well as self-directed learning guidelines which encourage a strengths-based approach to social work practice, and simultaneously requires critical thinking about power dynamics.