Albe, licensed practical nurse, Edmonton Institution for Women

Hello. My name is Albe McClintock. I'm a licensed practical nurse at the Edmonton Institution for Women. My path to CSC was actually through a co-worker, and it's been a completely new and different experience, which actually has a lot more engaging challenges than any of the other nursing that I've done so far.

What's nice for me about working with the inmates, especially in a correctional environment, is we're aiming for them to go out into the community, to be self-sufficient, to know what their own health concerns are and how to deal with those in the community. And it's really rewarding when I have patients come back to me a couple of weeks later and say, I tried these interventions that you suggested, this is what worked for me, this is what didn't, this is what I can continue to do in the future. So having people come back to me and say, I took that learning to heart, I know how to manage this portion of my health care aspect is uplifting. It means people are actually paying attention.

The staff here are wonderful to each other, from my experience. The first time I had to deal with a trauma here at the facility, I actually had a lot of people come up to me afterwards, in the next couple of days, asking me if I'm coping okay, if there's someone that I would like to talk to, if I would like to take the time to talk to them. So, it's very much not just touching base with our patients, but touching base with each other. We have a fantastic nursing staff here that are really good at stepping up and stepping in when they see that someone is struggling. And it's a very encouraging environment, it's very engaging. Everyone is encouraged to grow as much as they can.

The thing that I enjoy most about working with CSC as a nurse is I genuinely get to make a difference for people. When they come up to health care, they're happy to see me because I treat them with the same respect that I would want someone to treat me with. I get to put a smile on someone's face and my whole reason for going into nursing is if I can make one person smile per day, I know that I've made a difference.