Navigators are the heart of any successful MN FastTRAC program. They are the glue that hold together support agencies crucial to the success of participants and making sure students are prepared for academic, life, and work challenges.
Navigators can use these resources to learn how to strengthen their programs.
The role of a navigator is key to the success of any MN FastTRAC program. Participants in programs are balancing multiple responsibilities and working to overcome barriers as they participate in classes. A navigator helps them balance all of this. The tasks required of navigators will vary from program to program, but the essential responsibility remains the same. It’s the navigator’s job to make sure participants become self-sufficient with the following tasks:
These FAQs are adapted from the Colorado SUN Navigator Manual and from interviews of navigators working in MN FastTRAC partnerships.
What is a navigator?
A person who provides ongoing transition support, case management, and career exploration assistance.
What are the primary functions of a navigator?
A navigator supports participants in the following ways:
What are navigators' typical duties?
On any given day, a navigator might do some or all of the following:
What skills does a navigator need?
How do navigators support the enrollment process?
How do navigators motivate and persist?*
How do navigators support success in a classroom?
How do navigators support transitions?
* See the "Success Stories" link to hear Mimi, a navigator, talk about supporting persistence.
Effective conversations with participants are key to your success as a navigator. Knowing how to listen and advise can help you connect participants to the resources they need and ensure that you can teach them to work more independently to reach the resources themselves later.
Dr. Beverly O. Ford conducts training in case management, employment preparation, welfare reform, and client empowerment. Dr. Ford offers concrete examples of how a case manager can practice what she considers to be the three keys to active listening: paying attention; hearing the message; and showing the person that you’ve really heard them.
Watch this YouTube video, where Dr. Ford offers concrete examples of how a case manager can practice what she considers to be the three keys to active listening: paying attention; hearing the message; and showing the person that you’ve really heard them.
Read an interview with Dr. Ford on the role of case management in transitions programs.
Mimi works for Goodwill Easter Seals in St. Paul. For the past two years, she’s worked as a navigator in MN FastTRAC projects in St. Paul. She has some great information about how she’s supported participants.
Think about what you have learned. Discuss it with your MN FastTRAC partnership colleagues:
Successfully performing work as a navigator depends on your understanding of the work to be done and building the network of support for your learners. If you are in a new MN FastTRAC program, you likely will be shaping that work for future navigators:
Getting off to a strong start, with a well-defined, holistic intake process, is the foundation of the navigator-participant relationship. The process includes an intake interview, assessments, orientation, and enrollment support.
Here are a few key counseling tips that will be useful during the intake process but also necessary during your entire connection with the participants, including: motivational interviewing; clarifying roles, expectations, and aspirations; identifying barriers and supports; and exploring career interests and educational and employment goals. Also included are the tools you will need to accomplish these tasks.
Some navigators participate in participant recruitment. Presenting an overview at partnering agencies and support service providers is a great way to recruit for participants.
A recruitment plan will be developed by your Minnesota FastTRAC partnership. You will likely be asked to implement the recruitment plan. Many potential MN FastTRAC participants will come from agencies that provide support services. Reaching out to these agencies will be a great opportunity for you to begin to build your network of support.
At the very least, you should help plan the calendar for the recruitment process, to be sure that participants have adequate time to do intake, be assessed, and enroll in the program.
A well-organized intake process ensures that you capture relevant information about a participant. In addition, you’ll be sure to give the participant everything he or she needs to get started and build trust so that the participant will view you as a potential resource in the future. This is also the final opportunity to weed out unqualified or ineligible participants. Colorado SuccessUNlimited has materials to support the intake process.
Intake Meeting Steps
Start Identifying Support Service Eligibility
Use the Child Defense Fund’s Bridge to Benefits online assessment to help participants determine support resources eligibility.
Criminal Background Check
Because many employers will not hire an ex-offender for certain jobs, you may need to provide a criminal background check. It’s important to have this information up front to make decisions about the appropriate career pathway for an individual.
Often, you can use a free background check service.
However, the healthcare industry often requires a Department of Human Services background check. There is often a fee for this check.
Resources
Once you have your participants identified, it will be extremely important to make sure everyone starts off with the information they need to be successful.
A good orientation includes:
Orientation is also a great opportunity for all program faculty and staff to introduce themselves and learn more about each participant’s goals, interests, challenges, as well as for participants to begin connecting to one another and forming an identity as a cohort. ~National College Transition Network
The core event of an intake process should be the intake interview. During the interview, the navigator establishes rapport with the MN FastTRAC participant and begins the process of learning about the participant and barriers that he or she might need assistance addressing.
Dr. Beverly Ford describes one way to conduct this interview. Her idea is that you need to know what a client or participant really wants to change about his or her life. What is motivating the participant? Knowing this may help you be proactive about finding support and guiding participants to success in the classroom.
Dr. Beverly O. Ford conducts training in case management, employment preparation, welfare reform, and client empowerment.
Watch this YouTube video, where Dr. Ford offers concrete examples of how a case manager can practice what she considers to be the three keys to active listening: paying attention; hearing the message; and showing the person that you’ve really heard them.
Think about what you have learned. Discuss it with your MN FastTRAC partnership colleagues:
Start creating the documents and forms you’ll need for your recruitment, participant intake, and orientation. At the very least, make sure you have a Participant Intake Form template and create a version that meets your partnership’s needs. Here's a template you can use to make your own Participant Intake Form.
Your intake interview might reveal potential barriers for which learners might need support. Make sure your Support Service Networking Guide is complete. Do some digging and find more information if needed.
As you consider the different ways you will support your participants, understand that you will be doing most of the relationship building in the early weeks. Hopefully, the frequency and depth of your interactions and the success of your support will have encouraged participants to reach out to you when they need assistance finding resources. To ensure this continues, use proactive outreach to continue building relationships.
Your job as a navigator is primarily to support persistence. That means, your work with participants will center on keeping them moving forward from education to employment.
Do you have an understanding of persistence and retention strategies? To learn more, check out the New England Literacy Resource Center's Learner Persistence project.
The National College Transitions Network (NCTN) has identified several topics that, if addressed, can support student persistence. Navigator planned workshops or presentations on these topics would be great opportunities for the cohort to learn together and support each other. See NCTN's "College and Career Readiness" webpage.
Research suggests that the first three weeks of enrollment is an essential period for students to establish bonds between each other and with their educational programs. (Quigley, A. (1998). The First Three Weeks: A Critical Time for Motivation, Focus on Basics, Vol. 2, Issue A. Boston, MA:NCSALL, World Education) You will have started the process of this bonding during the intake process and orientation.
The early weeks of a MN FastTRAC program are likely very busy for the navigator. You should consider the first weeks that the participants are in class to be an extension of this early direct intervention. By proactively reaching out to participants, you will continue to build trust, build their awareness of the resources available to them, and be more likely to hear from them if they have problems.
Be proactive!
Navigators can unearth potential barriers that learners have not noticed. Sometimes proactive checking in can result in a solution or change in behavior before a barrier becomes a problem. If you are new to this work, you may not know what to look for or ask about.
For some ideas from Colorado's SUN Navigator Manual, check under "Educational Case Management" on the manual's webpage for a document called “Barriers to Student Success."
Keep accurate records
It helps to keep track of your conversations and any resulting interventions. Colorado's SUN Navigator Manual has a form that you can use. Check under "Forms" on the manual's webpage for a Monthly Navigator Report Template.
Navigators based in workforce development community-based organizations will have access to the Workforce One Management Information System. You might use this tool to keep track of case notes. See the Workforce One User Manual - MN FastTRAC.
Providing frequent opportunities for the participant cohort to meet is an important way navigators can support persistence. Consider setting up weekly group meetings where you cover topics that are likely of interest to all of the participants. This will get your participants used to seeing you and will demonstrate that you have access to information they need. Note, you need not lead all of the group meetings yourself; rather, you can facilitate as experts visit the classroom to share information with the participants.
This idea may be a huge shift in the way you think about doing work, but there is solid research that shows it is best practice. A Columbia College Community College Research Center article called “Toward a New Understanding of Non-Academic Student Support” describes the positive impact that developing meaningful social relationships can have on student persistence. (Toward a New Understanding of Non-Academic Student Support: Four Mechanisms Encouraging Positive Student Outcomes in the Community College (CCRC Working Paper No. 28, Assessment of Evidence Series)
Similarly, Drago-Severson (2001) wrote in “The Power of a Cohort and of Collaborative Groups” that participation in a student cohort (defined as a tight-knit, reliable, common-purpose group) enhanced academic learning, provided emotional and psychological support, and exposed students to diverse perspectives. Such a cohort was found to be very important to persistence. (Drago-Severson, E., et al. (2001). The Power of a Cohort and of Collaborative Groups. Focuson Basics, Vol. 5, Issue B. Boston, MA: NCSALL, World Education)
According to the NCTN, adult learners may not participate in campus activities because of family and work obligations, so they may have a hard time feeling like they belong on campus. “But by creating opportunities for community building and peer learning in the design of our integrated career pathways programs we can help student reap the benefits of social and information networks, nonetheless. In addition to fostering social and information networks, the experience of participating in structured group activities can help students develop important collaboration, critical thinking, and communication skills. “ ~National College Transition Network
Think about what you have learned. Discuss it with your MN FastTRAC partnership colleagues:
Being proactive and organized is essential to providing adequate support to your participants. Look below for templates you can use to make tools to help you keep track of your interactions with students and plan regular cohort meetings:
Collaborator-contributed resources available on Pathways to Prosperity's dropbox.com site:
Webinars:
Class website from Hubbs Center.
Do you have work that others should see? Know of a website that has really helped you with your Pathways to Prosperity work? Contact us and we'll post it!
