Resume

Active Positions with start date:

Nov 24ce. Volunteer Educational Assistant. Edmonton Public Schools.

12 hours per week (2 full school days). Elementary school. Volunteering has been mostly during the period of the CUPE 3550 strike, including the paid EAs, meaning the school is severely short-staffed. Thus far I’ve volunteered about 150 hours in school.

I have been told I should become a teacher by teachers at the school because I am excellent in performing educational tasks as needed.

July 24ce. Volunteer Youth Camp Assistant. Humane Society of Edmonton.

I support summer, fall, and spring break full day youth camps alongside paid camp staff. The youth are aged 6-12 in groups of 10-15. I’ve volunteered about 130 hours thus far. I have an excellent written reference.

May 17ce. Practical Support Worker. Alberta Health Services Contract.

I’m a support worker. I work and have worked over a period of years with those who are blind, have cancer or are cancer survivors, face complex medical issues such as severe complications from diabetes or recovery from effects of auto accidents, are survivors of domestic abuse both physical and psychological. Most of my clients are women over the aged of 50 who are low income and single. I have worked with single mothers raising children. I have worked with those facing drug addiction matters and been a key liason to their support team in this. I have and do work with people facing tragedy and death in their family and friends group.

My job is to provide emotional and practical support to clients whom I work with on a long term basis. Assistance includes: assisting in transport to appointments, help in setting up appointments, accompanying people in appointments when required, assistance with groceries, banking, and other errands. The job has required interactions with law enforcement and legal agencies regarding the reporting of senior abuse, domestic abuse, and delicate financial matters as well as active assistance in justly rectifying the situation in a manner ensuring the clients safety and well being.

The job includes practical supports in finding volunteer and work opportunities, as well as fitness advice. Clients have come from various religious, ethnic, cultural, and religious backgrounds and have included not-straight people.

I have done this for over 7 years. At present, at my request, my workload is a slightly less than it has been in the past to enable me to work and volunteer in other areas. At present I tend to have about 20 billable hours per week – though for years prior it has been 28-34 hours a week. At one point I had 12 active clients at the same time, all of whose appointments came through my work phone, at a time staff attrition had led to my essentially being the only Practical Support Worker working more than very part time…meaning I could not take a break nor a vacation nor get sick without clients potentially being left in a very serious position without support.

I advocated to program management over a period of months to rectify this situation and found the key hire who helped relieve the situation while spurring a managerial review of the program to make improvements.

I have an excellent written reference.