Cathie Hemeon’s journey into social work on reserves

Cathie does social work in and around reserves in her area with Carrier Sekani Family Services as a manager. This includes Nak’azdli Whut’en, Binche Whut’en, Tl’azt’en Nation, Yekooche First Nation, and Takla Nation. She says while that’s where she primarily works, her company would never turn someone down if they asked for help, no matter where they live. She also explained “In my 24 years of working primarily with Indigenous families living on reserve I have also worked on the following nations: Lake Babine Nation; Cheslatta Carrier Nation; Skin Tyee First Nation; Nee Tahi-Buhn Band; Witset First Nation; and Wet’suwet’en First Nation.” 

It all began in the tenth grade. 15-year-old Cathie took a survey in her guidance class (aka. careers) based on what career path she should follow, and social work popped up. One day, her parents received a phone call from their old friend. He began to tell them how he was sent to jail because his oldest daughter came forward to the RCMP saying her father had been sexually assaulting her since she was 12 years old. Cathie went with her parents to visit his children to see how they were doing and was greeted with facing the reality of how children were being treated in the foster care system. She said, on her drive home she decided she would dedicate her life to making sure the children were sent to the right homes. But life happened, she married young and had three kids Aaron Summer, Margaret Hill, and Tim Summer. Aaron is my dad and the oldest of the three. When Aaron and Margaret were in elementary school, Cathie began to volunteer at their school. Starting in the library, then moving to more things like helping struggling students in math. She realized how much she enjoyed working with children, and decided to go back to school to become an EA. 

Cathie believes there are four very important traits a social worker needs to have to be good at what they do. Number one is you need to have compassion. You need to feel for the people you are helping. You want them to know how you feel for them, you hear them, and you want to help them. Compassion ties into another important trait, being able and willing to build relationships. You need to build relationships with the people you are helping so they can trust you and tell you everything that they need help with. Cathie said you can see how much more detail and information they give you when they begin to trust you more. You must be non-judgmental. No matter how difficult it can be you are there to help them not judge their past. And lastly, you must know your values and stick to them. Do not be afraid to speak up when your coworkers aren’t doing the right thing. Do not stay quiet when you know you can help someone in need because others don’t agree. 

It’s no secret that social work takes a toll on someone’s mental health. Working in social work is not easy and you have to be very strong and actively force yourself to take time to work on your mental state. If you aren’t in a good place yourself, you will not do a good job of helping others in bad places. Cathie has many strategies she uses to help her process her work. Most importantly, she focuses not on what could have been done sooner, but on what she can do now. This is an important mindset in social work because no matter how hard you try, no one can change the past. Other than thinking strategies, she has physical ones too. She will walk around her community down and around the lake, making the walk around 45 minutes. She says that is a great way for her to process and have a peaceful moment to herself. She also likes to pray as faith is a very important part of her identity. Taking time to see and talk to family and friends is very important. Beading and yoga help her stay distracted. Most importantly, she says “leave your work at work.” Do not focus on work when it’s your time to heal. And her final piece of advice is to have time to laugh every day. Have fun friends and spend time with them being happy. 

When working with people living in reserves, it’s important to know how differently you go about helping them than others. Cathie said one of the most important things is to know and understand the generational trauma indigenous people have and know how it affects them. People living on reserves are either someone who went to residential schools, the child of someone who went to residential schools, or the grandchild of someone who went to residential schools. All of history is Canadian government betraying indigenous people repeatedly, how are they meant to trust a social worker who has so much power? While it makes it difficult to do your job, you must be able to understand and work with it. Cathie also mentioned the culture in reserves. Spoken and unspoken rules are part of every culture so working in a community you don’t know the rules of makes it a lot more difficult to do your job. This includes being careful with what you say. Do not let anything be taken out of context. Another necessity is knowing who in the reserve to trust. Who has a safe house for a child to stay in if needed, who will tell the truth about what’s going on, and who knows information others don’t. 

When I asked Cathie how her experience in her career changed her views on others and the world, she said overall she is just more cautious now. She looks for the closest door and sits near it, checks the counter for knives, and parks her car facing the street so she can quickly drive away if needed. She finds it hard to be trusting around strangers and tends to assess people when she meets them. 

There is so much more to write about this interview, and I wish I could have written for longer. To learn more, her organization has made a documentary narrated by Shaina Twaine on Netflix called “For Love”, and I encourage everyone to watch it. Big thank you to Cathie Hemeon, my grandmother for sharing her story with everyone, and teaching me so much about her field of work.