Community Care Advocates (CCA) are members of the campus community who are trained to respond to specific non-life-threatening circumstances by phone or at in-person events on campus.
The Community Care Coordinator, with the feedback from the Community Care Council, will support Community Care Advocates as they provide the following general services:
Student CCAs
- Student CCAs are peer advocates that may include students interested in promoting community care from any discipline on campus. Students may intern from appropriate Cal State LA programs including but not limited to Counseling, Psychology, Social Work, Criminal Justice and Nursing. Interns enrolled in applicable licensure track programs may be eligible to serve as advocates through the Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) Internship Program.
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Student CCAs are available on-call. They respond to non-life-threatening situations on campus involving students experiencing mental health or basic needs challenges, a crisis due to other factors and serve as peacebuilders at some campus events. They provide peer intervention and support to students who may experience emotional challenges associated with returning to an in-person environment or hybrid instruction.
Faculty and Staff CCAs
- Faculty and staff are volunteers and undergo the same training as student CCAs. They lead campus workshops and presentations on peacebuilding efforts, anti-bias programming, and partnership with public safety. They serve as mentors to student CCAs, provide feedback to them, and participate in Community Care Council meetings. Faculty and staff CCAs respond to referrals for follow-ups to provide additional support and mentorship and on occasion assist with in-person peacebuilding efforts.
Training, Selection, and Deployment
The Community Care team will use restorative approaches to offer community care. Restorative approaches create a pathway to community healing that focuses on communal relationships as well as harm prevention, intervention, and reduction. Restorative approaches refer to a variety of strategies and methods including hosting community building and healing circles and offering restorative justice interventions. All Community Care Advocates are certified circle facilitators and dispute resolution mediators.
Community Care Advocates (CCAs) include faculty and staff, as well as junior, senior, and graduate students majoring in Social Work, Rehabilitation Services/Counseling (CCOE), Public Health, or other related fields.
Each CCA is trained on:
- Dispute Resolution Program Act (DRPA)
- Empathy and Emotional Intelligence—appreciating others’ perspectives
- Conflict resolution
- Building trust and community
- Anti-bias awareness
- Microagressions
- Restorative circles
The Community Care Advocates (CCAs) are recruited and trained with the support and assistance of the Community Care Council. Training will help facilitate work in the following areas: peacebuilding, anti-bias, culturally-grounded programs, and collaboration with the Department of Public Safety.
Peacebuilding
CCAs host programs and workshops on finding creative resolutions to disagreements, conflicts, or other tensions. Programming focuses on transformative experiences when dealing with multiple forms and types of conflict and harm to help minimize negative outcomes and promote positive results that contribute to constructive post-conflict reconciliation.
CCAs are present as peace-builders at non-life-threatening, but potentially controversial events where there may be differing perspectives about the value or validity of the presentation. They will be directed by the Associate Dean of Students: Community Care to respond whenever there is a request for immediate assistance to de-escalate a campus conflict.
Anti-bias, culturally-grounded programs
Working closely with the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion team, the faculty and staff CCAs host, and support workshops, presentations, and other programming highlighting ways that common, everyday practices may serve to alienate or otherwise disparately impact first-generation and students of color.
Collaboration with Public Safety
CCAs work with Public Safety to help develop public safety outreach programs, increase effective communication with students, and help to build a strong relationship of mutual trust between Public Safety and the campus community.