fourletterslater

In the past week, besides apartment hunting and making new friends, I’ve been orienting to Mental Health with Capital District Health Authority. Check out their Mental Health site here.

I want to share a related event, which kicks off tomorrow, Tues 29 June, and will be ongoing until 17 July 2010.

In Our Own Words: A glimpse beyond the stigma of crack addiction is a project of Martha Little’s, a new graduate colleague with me who is nursing in the same Mental Health Dept. as me.

In Our Own Words, event poster

This unique event is a display of art belonging to another new nurse, who was an artist for 30 years prior to beginning nursing school. Martha’s passion for her art and for Mental Health Nursing come together in this display. The display is at Halifax’s local Propeller Brewery, – there will be free beer and some food to share!

Read more below. Here is an article on the event shared with me by the artist, Martha Little, and included here with her permission.

Hope to see you there!

Angela Espejo
BScN, GN

In Our Own Words is a powerful and engaging portrayal of six individuals living with crack addiction. In collaboration with Mainline Needle Exchange, Martha Little has combined her skills as a visual artist and nurse to voice an important social justice message. By layering photographs, words, and images, Little reveals the human face behind the addiction. Photographic portraits are encased in 30 plastic freezer bags often projecting a suffocating and oppressive existence. In contrast to the cardboard simplicity of the “addict” stereotype, the poignant and insightful words of the people in the pictures express complex fully human lives. Little notes it is important that the installation be accessible from the street as well as inside the Brewery because the lives of those addicted to crack are often street involved. Viewers do not have to enter the rarified confines of a gallery space to access the work.

After working for over thirty years as an artist, Little opted to return to university to obtain her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Dalhousie University.  During her community placement at Mainline Needle Exchange she had the opportunity to work with a dedicated harm reduction team headed by director, Diane Bailey.  Together Mainline does more than just hand out clean drug paraphernalia.  Staff offer understanding and respect. Stigma perpetuates social barriers and Mainline is often the only support for “addicts” when the mainstream health care system has failed them.

In order to begin the task of undermining stigma, Little and Bailey invited six clients living with crack addiction to tell their stories. They believed that if the community could hear each individual’s voice, it would offer a powerful spring board to shift the stereotype.

Participants contributed the intimacies of their lives in order to make a difference in the way people experience them. “It’s about time someone did something like this,” remarked one participant. During the interviews, Little observed that the simple fact of having ones story heard was cathartic. Tears were often shed. Then Little sorted, layered, and packaged the fragments of each life into a grid of freezer bags. Plastic bags are a fitting medium because crack often comes in baggies.

As I spoke with Little about her experience as an artist, it became very clear that her art was a perfect fit for the project.  She describes herself as a “visual poet” using dense imagery to communicate the human experience. Little’s art aims to challenge both herself and others to move toward greater insight.  It is a vehicle for self exploration. “We are all different recipes of the same ingredients. And if you understand yourself, it goes a long way toward helping you come to know another”. Little quotes Thich Nhat Hanh,  “Understanding and love are not two things, but just one…To develop understanding, you have to practice looking at all living beings with the eyes of compassion [“Buddha’s eyes”]. When you understand, you cannot help but love. And when you love, you naturally act in a way that can relieve the suffering of people.”* Her passion for humanity runs deep as she uses her poetic self to dig beneath the layers of words and images to uncover peoples’ “inherent beauty”.  This humanistic creative stance naturally connects with her work as a community health nurse. For example, elements of empowerment, social justice, and capacity building have all been woven into her art.

Little describes her fascination with layering images into a type of palimpsest. The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes a palimpsest as “writing material or manuscript on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for a second writing”. This technique of layering encourages the viewer to move in closer and look beneath the superficial stereotype to see into the deeper aspects of each life. She describes how the “true and therefore beautiful” faces of those living with addiction can bring us to a closer understanding of the human experience. In Our Own Words enables an emotional connection between viewer and image allowing us to explore our biases and our fears—fears that all too often block us from being able to understand the struggles of people living with addiction.

Little presents us with an opportunity to understand how crack addiction is intimately connected to the communities in which we live and how social structures, misunderstandings, and lack of support maintain the marginalization of these people.  Her humanistic and social justice art along with her knowledge of the social determinants of health and primary health care brings us closer to understanding the marginalization in which these individuals live. In Our Own Words reminds us that not only do we need to understand the person, but we also need to realize how social structures, such as the current legal system, perpetuate the social costs of drug addiction.

We must also thank community members for supporting the work of Mainline. Propeller Brewery is providing a space not only to showcase this art but also to provide a venue to discuss and exchange ideas about addictions in the true spirit of community development.  Businesses, organizations and community members can build capacity and improve health through innovative projects like this. In Our Own Words has helped bring health care workers, clients, business people, and the public together to discuss a health issue that touches us all.

As we move through each individual story with our eyes, hearts and minds, we are reminded of the social fabric in which we are all interwoven. The words “There but for the grace of God go I,” recurs throughout the work.  In Our Own Words draws us in to hear, if we choose to listen, the unique voices of a population seldom given audience. If we are mindful and attend to these voices, we can come to know their strengths, lost dreams, and dormant hopes for the future. They are our strengths, our hopes, and our broken dreams. We can take this opportunity to challenge our fears and complacency and move beyond stigma into a new space of social justice in our community. Let us all have the courage to move through all of the layers of our own and others’ lives to build caring and healing communities.

Megan Aston

* Thich Nhat Hanh. (1991). Peace is every step: The path of mindfulness in everyday life. forward by H.H. the Dalai Lama. Toronto, ON: Bantam Books. p. 79-80.

For those who are interested in reading further on addiction and social justice, Ms. Little recommends Dr. Gabor Mate’s (2009) In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Toronto, ON: Vintage Canada.

One of the greatest joys in my nursing education has been going through the program at the University of Alberta while my sister, Sarah, attended our collaborative site, Keyano College for her BScN, in our hometown of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Last weekend I attended her graduation ceremonies,

Keyano College Bachelor of Science in Nursing Pinning Ceremony, 22 May 2010

and I couldn’t be more proud, or happy for her. We’ve been especially inspired by our Aunt, Theresa Espejo, Emergency Department Registered Nurse.

With Auntie Theresa, holding the Nurses Pledge. Nurses in the crowd were invited to stand and recite the Nightingale Pledge with the graduates.

Sarah and I are two years apart – can you guess who’s older?!

Sarah (right) and I at my own graduation celebration the week before.

People usually guess wrong. Being close in age, we’ve been best friends since we were young, getting into trouble together since 1989, and of course, with the territory, come sibling rivalry and disagreements from time to time. I’ve sometimes thought, especially as we began our programs at the same time, in September 2006, that sharing an educational program may set us up for an even stronger rivalry, relating to comparison of grades and schools, nursing interests and activities, and career goals.

Dr. Joanne Olson, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Programs, addressed the graduates on behalf of the University of Alberta Faculty

The past four years have discounted those thoughts – in a sister that I already respected, admired, witnessed pieces of myself in… “mirrored” (Espejo, get it? If not, check out babelfish), I’ve had someone special with whom to share lessons and triumphs in education and nursing. We are apples and oranges when it comes to our respective professional practice; Sarah shares her unique perspective when we talk healthcare, and challenges me to think outside of my nursing box.

One of my favourite memories of our nursing experience together is when we travelled to Ottawa to attend the Canadian Nurses Association centennial celebration, AGM, and biennial conference in June 2008. We explored the beautiful city, became inspired at the awesome 100th celebration of our national professional association, discovered a little more about what we want in nursing, developed goals, made contacts, and became better friends.

University of Alberta Faculty of Nursing's Faculty Focus magazine, Summer 2008.

Clip featuring faculty and students at CNA Biennial in Ottawa.

Particularly fun that week was the University of Alberta Alumni Party, hosted by Dr. Joanne Profetto-McGrath, Vice Dean, and Jessica Twidale, Director of Public Relations. We celebrated that evening with  Alumni living in Ottawa, or visiting for the conference, as well as with one other student, Danielle Radchenko, rising star in the profession, and my Past-President of the Nursing Undergraduate Association at our school. Check out the Mu Sigma Spring 2009 newsletter, which highlights and welcomes Danielle into the University of Alberta chapter of Sigma Theta Tau International nursing honours society.

It’s been a journey so far nursing with Sarah, and I am bursting with anticipation for what the future will bring as we become Registered Nurses (7 days ’til CRNE exam date, oh my!).

20 to the 10 - University of Alberta 2010 sister nursing grads!!

Angela Espejo
BScN, GN

Emerging Health Leaders Coaching Workshop with Rachel Foster

25 March 2010 I attended a Coaching workshop hosted by the Edmonton chapter of Emerging Health Leaders.

When I first heard about the event “Coaching as a Leadership Tool – A Workshop” I was intrigued – the description of Rachel Foster, trained Leadership Coach, and the opportunity to develop skills for members’ personal and professional lives was certainly attractive. But I wondered if this event would be appropriate for me… just about to finish my undergraduate degree, would I be on the coach side of a coaching relationship anytime soon?

Article originally published in the EHL Edmonton April 2010 Newsletter.

The workshop attendees represented a variety of career paths, stages, and educational backgrounds. Although as a student it is easy to be intimidated by so many successful young professionals, a few familiar faces and friendly exchanges with new faces told me I had made a good choice in registering for the workshop.

Rachel addressed the group, radiating a sense of dignity, respect, and a genuine will to support and inspire. We began by discussing the difference between coaching and consulting. The group ascertained that coaching is about asking questions, creating possibilities, and transformative discovery. Coaching is not touchy-feely; rather, it challenges an individual to identify where he or she needs to be, and to discover how to reach their goal. In coaching, one must allow space, listen, and let silence do they heavy lifting. If questions are fundamental to coaching, then what are the right questions? We dialogued on how to ask questions that are open vs. close ended, exploratory vs. explanatory, and empowering vs. advisory.

Self Mastery card from Rachel. Cheerfulness: “Keeping a constant internal smile, knowing how amazing everything is and that it’s all perfectly okay, as a master I enjoy the paradoxes. I am easy-going about whatever happens. I don’t get angry anymore.”

Time to put our learning into action! Rachel introduced a coaching game, in which one person chose a hypothetical problem situation, and the other small group members selected questions from prepared cards to help move the coachee from point A to point B. Coachees faced their fears, took satisfaction in self-identification of the “next steps”, and focused on the process. Coachers observed the shift in confidence that occurred as coachees became empowered, and noted the difficulty of finding a question to match the coachee’s needs, as opposed to a question to match the advice the coach wanted to give.

Contracting with the coachee by setting goals before beginning the questioning, was a significant step to remember. The important skills in coaching that we had to work on included listening, paraphrasing, and clarifying (thank goodness for that first year nursing communication lab). Rachel shared with us three questions to end with:

1)   What are you taking away from today’s session?

2)   What has been valuable to you in or discussion?

3)   How will you support yourself to move forward?

Next up, practicing the questions with our real-life issues…

My challenge at the time?

• graduating from a professional program and transitioning into an industry that, provincially, has been chaotic in the past 18 months, and shows few signs of gaining stability
• when I entered nursing I understood that upon graduation I would be extremely employable and have great job security, with the choice of what kind of nursing to practice and what city to work in; the current situation of nurses in Alberta is a reality further than what I could ever have imagined
• frustration with the provincial government, feel I am unable to remain in and contribute to the community that is my home, and I fear for the recent health care changes’ effect on patient outcomes. I could not identify the next steps to take.

The EHL member who practiced coaching me did a fabulous job of finding questions to help me explore my transition from school to practice, and to identify fears, challenges, strengths, and goals. In my coaching session I established what I am comfortable risking or sacrificing, and what I am not willing to risk or compromise in my career search. By the end of the practice session, I felt proud of my decisions thus far, and could celebrate many of the points that we discussed – I am about to complete my degree, I have developed professionally through co-curricular pursuits, and I’m happy with the activities that I have invested my time in.

Our ending reflection on lessons summarized that coaches don’t offer a solution; coaches show people how to empower themselves – a valuable leadership quality.

This quote from Rachel’s website sums up coaching well:

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), Former American First Lady

www.rachelfoster.com

N.B.: I’m happy to say that three weeks following the coaching workshop I accepted a great offer for a New Graduate Transition Program and full-time nursing position with Capital District Health Authority in Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of Canada’s Top 100 Employers. Read their Employer Review here.

HALIFAX HERE I COME!!!

Angela Espejo
BScN, GN