03/09/2016
If you're looking for somewhere to volunteer your time, we highly recommend Turning Leaf Community Support Services! Read this interview below and I'm sure you'll agree!
Meet Meagan –
Meaghan is a Community Support Case Manager at Turning Leaf Community Support Services Inc. I met Meaghan as part of a project that I’m working on and I thought that she would be a perfect ‘Stranger’ to showcase on this page because of the selfless and extremely important work that she does for the community at Turning Leaf – helping people with intellectual challenges and mental illness who have fallen through the cracks in our system.
This interview will be slightly different than the previous Interviews in The Stranger Project Winnipeg because I felt it was important to include the stories that Meaghan shared with me about the people that she helps as well as a little more information about her employer, Turning Leaf Community Support Services. This way we really get the opportunity to know and understand Meaghan and the kind of work she does as well as what Turning Leaf does within our community.
Turning Leaf Inc. is a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to providing helpful services to those experiencing intellectual challenge and mental illness.
Turning Leaf began ten years ago with the hard work and dedication of caring community members passionate about providing person-centered supports to individuals in need. Today, they support over 170 individuals living with intellectual challenges and/or mental illness in 3 divisions (Community Support, Residential Support and Day Program Services) each providing a unique set of services. One of their primary objectives is to facilitate activities that aid in the integration of the individuals they support in the community, while providing them with a sense of accomplishment, ownership, group membership and self-esteem.
My questions to Meaghan are in brackets…
(Tell me what you do as a Community Support Case Manager at Turning Leaf Community Support Services.)
“Each Community Support Case Manager holds about 20 to 25 files. We are responsible for managing the day to days, sending updates to the funding agents as well as putting together support plans, release plans, harm reduction plans.”
(So these are for your clients?) “Yes.”
(Do you oversee the Community Support Workers that are on site?)
“Yes, the Community Support Workers are strictly in the community, not in the residences. The programs are on the street, working one on one with people on the street whether it be in a shelter, a rooming house, or in an apartment. The individuals that we support in the community program are living in the community, they could be your neighbour or they could be living down the street from you. We just go into where they’re at to provide them with the support they need.”
(How did you become involved with this type work)?
“I started kind of being involved with the criminal justice system when I was really young, my parents did volunteer work at prisons so I started hanging out with convicted felons and convicts from the time I was 5 years old. It was definitely an interesting way to grow up. We would take guys who could have day releases out on day passes and have them over for Sunday dinners. So I’ve been around the high risk behaviours all my life.”
(So you saw the difference your parents were making and you wanted to do that too?)
“Yeah, I just kind of fell into it. I didn’t really pursue it and decide this is what I’m going to do with my life, I just kind of fell into it.
My favourite part of my job here is probably my co-workers, we are like a family. What motivates me is seeing the little changes and the successes that people wouldn’t see if it wasn’t for our program.
When I started with Turning Leaf I was working in the Front Line in the Community. I have one individual I support who I have been working with for 4 years and I’ve seen him graduate from being in custody non-stop, to being supervised by co-probation - which is like the top 100 most high-risk offenders in Winnipeg. Then he graduated to regular probation. He has been involved with the mental health work and he now has no community service hours, is going to school and living independently in his own apartment.”
(And this is because of the work that…)
“Front line staff of Turning Leaf have been doing, ya. It’s amazing. “
“It’s also the other successes where you know, someone will phone me at 11:00 at night and say ‘Hey instead of buying a 24 I bought a 6 pack’. I celebrate that too because it’s still a victory, they’re still using, but it’s a harm reduction. They’re not drinking 24 beers, they’re drinking 6 beers. They are being conscious of the problem.”
“I have another participant; we will call her Roxy. She grew up with a family that was entrenched with gangs. By the time she was 11 her Mom was telling her to run from the cops. She bounced in and out of the youth system within custody and CFS care. She went to a residential program for a bit in Selkirk which wasn’t really the right fit for her so she came back to Winnipeg and started using again. She was using crack, smoking crack on a daily basis, and drinking very heavily. Then she got motivated and started going to classes. She got motivated by looking at the negative around her. Looking at her family she realized that she didn’t want that for herself. We had staff that took her to classes every day. We took her to anger management, addictions classes and some parenting classes because she was helping to raise her sister’s kids.”
(So your staff really supported her and pointed her in the right direction to change her life)
“Ya, and she just recently moved to Ontario because she got a full time job. She is now sober and clean and has a full time job where she will make more money than anyone in her family has ever made doing a legal legit job.”
(I can see when you’re talking how much this all means to you)
“I actually started working with her before she was 18 because we supported her older sister, she was always kind of just hanging around and ya, she was one of the ones that, you know, every once in a while you get one that just pulls on your heart strings in just the right way. You still maintain the proper boundaries, but their successes really mean something.”
(Does it ever overwhelm or get to you where you find it difficult personally?)
“At times, but Turning Leaf has provided such an amazing environment that you can talk to anybody. We have the Clinician that comes in and if we need to we can talk to her. We support each other and since I first started working here when I was in the community, I journal everything so that before I go home at the end of the day, I write everything out so that it’s not all sitting in my head through the night because I don’t want to take it home to my family. I’m common law and have 2 children.”
(Let’s go back to the young man with legal problems. So since he was a kid he was in and out of jail?)
“No, he grew up with his biological family. They were very supportive; his mother was a huge advocate for him. At about 21 he was diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia and he started bouncing in and out of the legal system. There was a strip on Sargent that he would frequent with all the private gentleman’s clubs and they recognized him as a vulnerable person so they would give him a list of things to go boost (getting him to steal for them). He thought they were his friends, but they were very much taking advantage of him. He bounced in and out of custody for stealing then things escalated a little bit when he stopped taking his medication. The Paranoid Schizophrenia was really impacting his life. He started writing threatening letters to government officials and city leaders and as a result he ended up in custody for quite a while.”
(So this a side effect of the Paranoid Schizophrenia?)
“Yes, that’s what we believe. If he was managing his medication better, he wouldn’t have said the things that he said in the letters. He did quite a bit of time in custody and when he was released worked closely with him setting him up with an apartment in one of our residential houses where he was living independently in a little bachelor suite. He had access to our staff and got back on routine with his medication and he got involved with the Mental Health Courts.
The Mental Health Courts are great. They are almost like an extra step in probation for people who have really severe mental health problems. When sentencing him, the courts take into account the fact that he has a mental health problem. Its relatively new, it’s only about 2 or 3 years in. It takes a lot to apply to get in, but once you’re in you’re good.”
(So rather than punishment, they are working with you to help find solutions?)
“Yes, so he goes once a week to Manitoba Health Court and the judge goes over what his week has been like, it’s super validating to sit in there! I have sat in a few times and the judge is like ‘Ok, you have done this really well, and this really well, you’ve gone to probation, you’ve maintained your curfew, you’re going to school, good job, keep up the good work.’ And if he hasn’t done so well, if there has been a you know ‘You missed your curfew and you were caught stealing’ they might look at community service hours as an option instead of just sending him to jail because the consequence doesn’t match. He doesn’t realize what he is doing. It is an amazing program. He has really benefited from that and we are now looking at him being completely done with probation perhaps in the next year and a half - which no one would have ever thought!”
(And he was listed as one of the top 100 most dangerous offenders because of the threats?)
“Yes. I have been working with him for 4 years, he is an interesting guy. He just lost his Mother this year, but he’s been seeing our clinician here and he has been coping with it as well as anybody could. It’s amazing.
I’ve spent 2 ½ - 3 years working in the community, then I moved to being a supervisor, then I moved to being a case worker.
Another story that comes to mind that I might get a little bit weepy about, when I was working front line in the community I worked with this young man who was really gang involved and just kind of grew up in the system with CFS and bouncing in and out of custody. He was at a house party one night and was stabbed 2 times in the chest. No one at the house party wanted to accept responsibility for it, so everyone left him there. They suspect he laid on the floor for about 3 hours bleeding out before Paramedics arrived. He was on life support for about 2 weeks before his family made the decision to unplug the life support. It was just a really powerful learning experience for me because I always work with the harm reduction technique, I’m not going to make anybody stop doing anything they don’t want to stop, but I want it to be as safe as possible. So if you’re going to go out and use, let’s have a safe plan. If you’re going to go to a party, let’s make sure you have phone numbers that you can phone for help. It was really at that moment that I realized that I can make all the plans that I want, but bad things are still going to happen.”
(Why were you working with him?)
“He was diagnosed with FASD (Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder) and a cognitive delay, so we were just trying to support him in the community the best we could. He was fairly transient so we couldn’t track him down a lot. He didn’t have a stable address, he didn’t have a phone, so it was really going out walking around, looking for him.”
(So you actually actively went out looking for him to make sure he was OK?)
“Yes. We would go every week and track him down for his probation meetings so he wouldn’t get breached. We’d make sure that he had groceries and at least a backpack full of food if he’s going out walking everywhere. He was referred to us by CLBS (Community Living Disability Services), that’s where most of our referrals come from. They will have their list of people who qualify for their program or are involved in their program and it’ll be people with an IQ of under 70 and who have been diagnosed with a mental disability or a cognitive delay before the age of 18.”
(So this info comes from schools or doctors?)
“Yes, or the justice system. The justice system will put in referrals and then we will work on digging up old assessments and documents from schools.
Roxy was also a Community Living Disability Services referral. Community Living Disability Services had been involved with her family for quite a long time because she has some older siblings that are also involved and they were referred through the school system when they were young.
(And the young man with Paranoid Schizophrenia who was in jail?)
“He was also through Community Living Disability Services.”
(So can anyone refer someone to Turning Leaf directly?)
“Yes, we have had people walk in off the streets and ask for help. We had one girl who came in one day off the street and she was so scared because her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend was very much gang involved and very abusive, so I sat and talked to her for about 2 hours. She was from rural Manitoba and her family didn’t want her back because of choices she had made previously and she completely opened up to me about the abusive relationship. He was physically, emotionally and mentally abusive to her. He was making her work on the streets to fuel his addictions and hers. I was able to take her get her set up at Osborne Women’s Centre so she had a safe place to be away from him - and nobody was paying us to work with her. No one was expecting anything from us - but if we are able to help someone in that way, we will.
I specifically work a lot with gangs, in my case load I have all very high risk behaviours. I work primarily with gang members, addicts and prostitutes. It is a tough job, but I love it. I have always said I am really lucky to have the type of job where if I were to win the lottery tomorrow I would still come in to work!”
(And you really feel you are making a difference?)
“Some days yes, but some days I just feel like I am spinning my tires.”
(What do you think about Turning Leaf?)
“I could not ask for a better employer. The impact Turning Leaf makes on the community is unbelievable. We work a lot with the individuals in the community that everyone wants to turn a blind eye to. Everyone wants to just close their eyes and not see the problems. I think the culture here at Turning Leaf is phenomenal and I’ve found inadvertently that’s its spread to my kids. At least one of them, the 5-year-old is still pretty selfish and just wants to keep everything, but my 11-year-old is very giving, if she gets something new, she has to get rid of something and give to somebody who doesn’t have. She’s already talking about working in criminal justice when she grows up so she can help people. I think I am setting a good example. My 5-year-old looks at me sometimes and says ‘What do you do for work mama?’ I’m like, it’s kind of a hard job to explain, but I tell her I help people.
It does have its draw backs though. If there is The Santa Clause Parade and my husband is working, I’m not taking my kids by myself so they miss out on some stuff because generally the population that we serve is in the downtown core area and I am very conscious about keeping my personal and professional life separate. It’s kind of like working in probation or in corrections, you kind of have to keep that bubble and sometimes the kids get frustrated with me about it, but you got to keep them safe right? So it makes you more aware.”
(So you are one of the secret heroes here in Winnipeg?)
“I don’t know about that part.”
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If you or someone you know needs help from Turning Leaf Community Support Services, or if you would like to support the amazing work they do with a monetary contribution or ‘gift in kind’ for one of their many upcoming fundraising events,
visit http://turningleafservices.com.
‘Like’ them on Facebook to keep up with their good work, learn about volunteer opportunities and stay informed about their upcoming fundraising events: https://www.facebook.com/TurningLeafWpg/.
- Interview and written by Tina Lussier
