Six career lessons – Part 3: Care enough to make a difference

Whether you’re staring at a blinking cursor trying to write your first resume, practising your podium skills or facing a career change, this year’s Arch Award recipients have insights on navigating uncertainty, embracing opportunity and forging one’s own path. That’s why, leading up to the start of Alumni All-Access on Oct. 15, we’re sharing two career lessons every week that draw on the experiences, challenges and unexpected moments that helped shape their journeys.

Lesson 3: Care enough to make a difference

So often, success is measured by what an individual has accomplished — a job title, an accomplishment or a paycheque. There are those, however, who measure success not by what they do, but what they do for others. People like Mark Jones, BPE'82.

So often, success is measured by what an individual has accomplished — a job title, an accomplishment or a paycheque. There are those, however, who measure success not by what they do, but what they do for others. People like Mark Jones, BPE'82.

If you were lucky, you had a teacher like Jones. Over 35 years in public education, he earned a reputation for compassion. He didn’t just know all his student’s names. He knew their parents. Sometimes even their grandparents. Taking caring and compassion to the next level is behaviour that informed his entire career.

When a series of suicides rocked the Red Deer community he called home in the 2010s, Jones started asking questions. He felt there had to be better a way to support youth mental health. Channelling the generosity he learned from his parents and the skills he acquired as a teacher, he discovered that signs of trauma and abuse often went unrecognized. Armed with that knowledge, he set about to create the Central Alberta Child Advocacy Centre. By bringing a wide array of social service supports under a single roof, the centre helps people living in the shadow of trauma get help, without navigating a confusing and disjointed system.

While he spent time working with educators, health-care supports and law-enforcement resources to get the centre up and running, that was just the first step. He also collaborated with financial experts to develop a sustainable business model. Doing this allowed the centre to pour their energy into serving youth instead of focusing on fundraising. With that, Jones created a successful organization that could support a universal initiative that was also deeply personal.

"Vulnerable children can't help themselves," Jones says. "As adults, we need to be the people that help them."