F09 – Features

By Vivian Hansen

My Career Development practicum setting was at the Mustard Seed Street Ministry in Calgary, an agency that is mandated to provide service to homeless and marginalized people.  The organization operates from a Christian-based spiritual practice.  The Mustard Seed provides a multitude of services, including meals and shelter at the most basic level.  A Creative Centre where guests can become involved in artistic enterprises including painting, knitting, journaling, and other crafts is also available to guests who are registered in a Seed Program.  Many current and former Seed guests have sold their art in fundraisers and formal shows.

By Denise Bissonnette

I believe that the core purpose of our work as employment professionals is to assist people in seeing beyond their barriers and limitations in order to enter the more expansive field of their potential and possibility.  To that end, we have to embrace the imperative of creativity in helping people recover the capacity to dream, to reclaim the vitality of their imagination, and to exercise healthy judgment in making important choices.  The ultimate gift we have to offer is hope and belief on behalf of their future and a broadened perspective from which they can perceive their gifts, their potential, and the overcoming of barriers and limitations.  As such, we are called to creativity in much the same way that the engineer is called to precision, the athlete is called to physical exertion, or the painter is called to artistic expression.  From this viewpoint, creativity is not just an “extra” that we can contribute when we feel inspired to do so, but as the very essence of our work.  What that means in everyday terms is applying “possibility thinking” as the lens through which we perceive every part of the process which culminates in the illumination of a person’s potential and the expansion of their choices.

By Mark Swartz, MBA, M.Ed.

The Opportunities Are Increasing

The idea of employment being sustainable has a lot of appeal in this day and age of job insecurity. Now there’s a whole new meaning to the term. “Sustainability” these days means your job involves green, environmental initiatives, or else falls under the umbrella of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It’s a great new way for your clients to increase their marketability. They can differentiate themselves as capable employees who can also get profit-enhancing CSR done. But don’t just take it from me.