Redefining Traditional: Understanding the Experience of Student Parents at the University of Toronto
The Family Care Office offers support to the University of Toronto’s students, staff, and faculty for family-care issues. To better understand the experiences of students with family-care responsibilities, the office partnered with the Innovation Hub over the past six months to collect reliable and definitive data about the tensions and barriers faced by student parents.
Fall/Winter 2018 - 2019
What are the experiences of student parents at U of T?
Innovation Hub analyzed semi-structured interviews conducted with student parents and Family Care Office staff to highlight the challenges that students face as they navigate their dual responsibilities at the University of Toronto.
KEY FINDINGS
Students face challenges as they navigate their dual responsibilities at the University of Toronto
Design researchers gained a deeper understanding of student parent experiences, what they need, and how higher education communities can support student parent experiences and needs. The analysis reveals four themes:
- Finding Belonging
- Navigating Systems
- Emotional Pressure
- Practical Needs
These core needs became the foundation of design thinking research in collaboration with student parent communities and the Family Care Office.
Arriving in Canada to Study: International students demonstrated a sense of persistence and determination in their journey to Canada. They also emphasized a sense of belonging in unfamiliar landscape. The importance of feeling secure is also vital to them.
Navigating Systems: Many student parents shared their frustrations with navigating access within the University of Toronto’s different systems. Support and services may be available (or unavailable) at different levels of the university, such as the Graduate Student Union, the Family Care Office, the department, or individual faculty members. However, there are significant barriers to accessing these resources, starting with lack of knowledge of the existence of different services..
Emotional Pressure: While there are many resources available for student parents, they often face emotional and mental barriers. Common experiences include feelings of stress, discomfort with disclosing that they have children, guilt, etc. These emotional or mental challenges sometimes prevent students from wanting, and self-advocating for, more support. This can negatively affect their academic success and generally contribute to feeling isolated from the University.
Practical Needs: Student parents have many practical needs, and lack of support for these needs puts further limitations and stress upon them. Many student parents feel stressed by lack of time, financial constraints, and difficulty in finding childcare. Constantly having to find ways to meet their practical needs hinders student parents' abilities to better integrate their dual responsibility as parents and students.