Meet our 2021 Resident Assistants
Congratulations to our 2021 Resident Assistants (RAs) Andrea Xia, Kacy Zhou and Thomas Winship for their appointments as the Mandelbaum House RAs in 2021. Each have held leadership roles at Mandelbaum over the past few years, and are now ready to assist new residents navigate the transition into university and college life.
Our RAs are part of our pastoral care team at Mandelbaum House which also includes CEO Shana Kerlander and COO Naomi Winton. This year, we are excited to introduce a new member to the team, Harrison Peters, who will be our inaugural Indigenous Resident Mentor (IRM).
In January, our pastoral care team participated in a tailor-made leadership workshop created by the dynamic Josh Farr from Campus Consultancy. Together they explored Team Values and selected the following to guide them for the year, to be: inclusive, empathetic, responsible and to lead by example. These values were put into action during Welcome Week which was an informative, bonding, and fun week for our new and returning residents.
Here are some highlights of Welcome Week activities:
-
- Welcome Day
-
- Bowling & Laser-tag outing
-
- Orientation
-
- Welcome lunch
-
- Making Purim gift bags
-
- Welcome BBQ lunch
-
- Mandelbuddies
-
- Getting to know you..
Our RAs are provided with extensive training to give them the tools and the confidence to assist and support residents. This training includes First Aid, Mental Health First Aid, Responding with Compassion, MATE Bystander, and Responsible Service of Alcohol. They also participated in the University of Sydney Resident Assistant Conference 2021 which included “What is Residential Life”, “How to Pastoral Care” and “Ask the experts” where they met and learnt about the professional support services available at USYD where they can refer residents to, which includes Counselling and Psychological Services, Disability Services and the Student Liaison Officers.
During Welcome Week, our residents also received training along with our RAs which included Wellbeing, Drugs & Alcohol Awareness, Consent Matters and Cultural Competency Training.
We are on track for another successful year at Mandelbaum and we hope it rewarding and fulfilling for all.