Honor, Correctional Officer II

I like helping people. It's a good thing. It's, people struggle all the time. It's something that it's human nature. I just want to make a difference with, especially my coworkers and peers, and be there for them, because this isn't an easy job. It's not an easy job on the brain. It changes you.

Hi. I'm Honor. I'm a correctional officer, level two at Grand Cache Institution. I've been with Correctional Service of Canada for almost 16 years, so. I love my job. I love working with people, and I feel like even though it doesn't feel like you're making a difference. Yeah, I've seen the difference. We all really come together as a team. So those are the people that you're going to have to trust and know that they're going to be there for you.

Hi again guys. This is our, EAP/CISM room. So EAP is the employee assistance program. That entails people that are having trouble with life and having issues or problems, whether it's in their personal life, their work life. So they would come to us and they have questions about the program, what it entails, who to call, how it works.

People always felt comfortable confiding in me and with EAP especially, it's confidential. As soon as people come to me, they're like, can I talk to you? I'm like, yep, whatever you want to say, that'll be between us. So difficult to watch. And I just want to make a difference with, especially my coworkers and peers and be there for them because this isn't an easy job.

See you guys have a good day. We have a lot of nice gym equipment and a lot of people frequent our gym. We have a lot of gym users. You can come in here and you can work it out, and then you just go back to work and you feel refreshed and you feel good. And also I see guys come in here, people come in here and they stand around, they talk and they talk about what just happened, or if there is an incident that just happened, and then they debrief that way and that's a great way to to bring yourself down too.

So we also have the CISM program, which is a critical incident stress management. And that itself too after every incident, CISM is offered to everybody that was involved in the situation that just happened. And I've had to go a couple times and I just go around and I just go in and I'm like, hey guys, how's it going?

Everybody knows everybody here and everybody knows me here. I've been here for so long and I'll come in and I'll say, hey, I'm just here to offer CISM. Did you want to chat? You want we can go somewhere and talk, or we can just hang out here and chat. Sometimes people are like, yeah, I want to talk about.

Other times they're like, oh no, I'm good. And I'm like, well, you know where to find me. And CISM is, I feel it's necessary. It's very good. Necessary. People I've been in incidents where you go, you react, you do your job, and afterwards you're like, holy, what just happened? But it's just a good way to talk about it and let it out.

Because otherwise, as in the past, so many people just keep it in and it just festers and it becomes a sickness almost that eventually will get you. And that's why I do a lot of what I do too. I don't want that to happen to other people either. You know, we work hard. We do a good job.

I want to retire and enjoy myself, not be burdened or stressed or being eaten away inside by stuff that happened that I just didn't talk about.