Naomi's Testimony

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"When Program Coordinators burn out it means students lose the person who tethered them to this program: they lose the person they confided in, and they are told to start over and tell those same personal details to another person who will most likely leave in less than a year. If OMD cares about their scholars and program coordinators and wants to provide a quality program, they will agree to a reasonable caseload cap of 45."

Naomi Ramsay, Career Advancement Coordinator

I have worked at One Million Degrees for six months now, and I feel like a veteran because of our high turnover rate. When I was hired as the Career Advancement Coordinator for the Medical Assisting Pathways Program, in October 2019, I was told there would be no more than 50 students on my caseload at a time. The last position I had, before OMD, I worked with a maximum of 18 students at a time, so the thought of working with 50 students to provide them with quality services felt impossible. I honestly was not sure I should take the job with this high a caseload, but when I found out the actual number of students I would be working with this year was 31, that made me feel better. This doesn’t even compare to the 65-student caseload that other Program Coordinators in the signature program currently have.

The quality of services I can provide to students is much lower in this position than it was in my last position, given the increase in number of students I serve. I have much less time to get to know the students as people and understand how best to work with them. Meetings feel very rushed and focused on completing a checklist of necessary items. In contrast, in my last role, I had time to learn about my student’s lives and build trust that made it possible for them to feel safe reaching out to me when they were in a crisis. I also had more time to search for specific services/resources to meet their individual needs. However, in this position I refer students to other resources, but a lot of the time I don’t know much about those resources and have not been able to vet them first. This means that sometimes I waste student’s limited time, sending them on their one day off to apply for a resource that they will not end up receiving. If I had been able to vet the resource first, I would have known that it wasn’t going to be helpful given their specific needs. Then I think about the other Program Coordinators, some with twice my caseload, and I cannot imagine them trying to serve 65 students.

First and foremost, our job is about building relationships with students, so we can support them. This relationship-building requires time for student meetings, because you can’t plan when someone is going to confide in you about their partner cheating on them, or their family not having food to eat at home. However, if you have scheduled back-to-back thirty-minute meetings, it makes it nearly impossible to give the students the space and time they need to process some of the more vulnerable things they are going through. The size of the caseload doesn’t mean that we will dismiss this student quickly; instead it means that we will work over our lunch break, or come in early the next day to find more resources for them. It also means that we will burn-out more quickly, because working over lunch and staying late is unsustainable. When Program Coordinators burn out it means students lose the person who tethered them to this program, they lose the person they confided in, and they are told to start over and tell those same personal details to another person who may stay for the whole year, but may not, depending on how fast they burn out. A caseload cap of 45 is necessary in order to provide students with quality support, and provide staff a manageable and sustainable caseload. If OMD cares about their scholars and program coordinators they will provide a reasonable caseload cap of 45 because they understand the importance of relationship building and know what quality scholar support looks like.

Please consider signing our petition to support UWOMD's campaign for a fair contract and caseload: https://bit.ly/UWOMDcaseloadcap

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