Chapter 15

MICHENER CENTRE

Several years had passed, it was now 1973 and Tom was the only one still at home. He wasn’t due to start school until 1975 but he was bored with all the others gone. Often friends with children Tom’s age would ask me round for coffee but rather than play with them Tom would ask if he could stay in the car and read his book. Not that I wanted to get rid of him but I thought it would be good for him if he could start school a year early and accordingly took him to be tested by the Provincial Psychologist because the rule was that if she recommended that a child start early, the school would take him.

He romped through the test and scored an IQ rating of 142 so it was agreed that he should go to school the following year. `Then you can get a job’ Reg told me. I had never thought of doing that – who would employ me when I hadn’t worked for 15 years? Well of course I’d worked – very hard in fact – but not paid work and I didn’t have Canadian teaching certification so what could I possibly hope to get?

Then I had a brainwave. A friend, Ellie Carr (no relation) ran the Red Deer Day Care Centre so I offered to volunteer there. She accepted with delight, they were always short staffed and of course I could take Tom there with me. After my first two days working at the centre, she offered me a paid job and that was it – I was working! I told her when I started that I would need to have the summer holidays off as we had already arranged to go away on one of our long camping trips but she said that was fine and I started again after the holidays when Tom started school. I enjoyed the work although it was busy, but no harder than my previous experience of looking after a young family and I was actually getting money for it.

However I was constantly on the lookout for something a bit more challenging so one day when I saw a job advertised in the Red Deer Advocate for a teacher in Sense Training at Michener Centre I applied for it.

Michener Centre was a state institution for the care of intellectually and physically disabled children and adults and it was the largest employer in Red Deer. In fact when I began working there the population of residents was about 1800 with nearly the same number of staff. It was an efficient organization with services such as medical, dental, occupational therapy, recreation, education, its own laundry and sewing room, its own fire hall, an independent utility system and its own farm. The photo above is of the administration building.

I had been working there for only a short time when the whole philosophy of the institution changed from the Medical Model to the Psychological Model and then other services were added such as Staff Development, psychology and pastoral care. Behaviour modification became the system under which the institution was run and the whole aim was to rehabilitate the residents so that they could live independently. Of course that wasn’t possible in every case but the success in many instances was amazing and many residents ended up with their own apartment downtown, sometimes getting married to another ex-resident and looking after themselves quite well with a little backup help from the social workers.

I was contacted after I put my application in and I had an interview with Dr LeVann who was the superintendent there at that time. I think I must have been one of his last interviewees because by the time I started work he had retired. I didn’t get the teaching job but I did get a letter the following week inviting me to apply for a position in Occupational Therapy and asking me to go for an interview if I was interested. I was - but felt bound to point out when interviewed that I had had no experience in occupational therapy and that I was not in fact a `crafty' person apart from the most basic of sewing skills. I was assured that that would not be a problem as I would be sent away to Edmonton for a 6-week training course at the School of Rehabilitation Medicine if I accepted the position.

Could that possibly be true? I would be trained - and paid during training! I could not believe my good fortune and accepted the position with alacrity but not a little trepidation. Two young girls, Judy Hansen and Marianne Massing, started work on the same day as me and both proved to be great friends as did all the staff there including Freda Peters who was in charge. I was working in a large sunny room with about eight other staff members, each of whom had several residents working under their supervision at any time. I was set to work with Ruth Hohn until the training course started. Ruth did the most beautiful embroidery - I still remember her Hardanger - and had residents working on embroidered or drawn-thread tablecloths, hooked rugs with intricate designs and complicated weaving. Other staff members had residents working on slightly different projects but all reflected the skills and ability of the staff members who designed the projects, taught the residents the necessary skills to carry them out and supervised and encouraged them until they were finished - then the resident carried the finished object proudly round the department and was praised by us all.

After a few weeks it was time to go to Edmonton where we lived in the university residence all the week and just went home to Red Deer for the weekends. Besides the three of us from Red Deer there were employees from other institutions in Alberta, about twelve of us altogether. We learned every craft imaginable including things completely new to me, plus theory in such areas as assessment, suitability of work for people with various disabilities, design and planning. As well as all the theory we were instructed in different crafts - we learned woodwork and I made a box with pokerwork aboriginal designs on it which I used to keep cards in, metalwork - I made curved wrought iron brackets on which to hang plants, beautiful jewellery in enamel work, ceramics of all kinds including throwing pots on the wheel and a host of other crafts. It was a wonderfully interesting time of my life and I returned to Michener Centre at the end of the six weeks feeling somewhat better equipped to handle the job.

Because of my experience at the School for the Deaf in Melbourne, I was asked to work with a group of deaf children on the Junior Pediatric Unit (JPU) so I went out there every afternoon armed with various activities. The idea was that the deaf children could eventually attend Occupational Therapy but they must first be taught to sit at a table and concentrate on a task. This was achieved successfully and in a couple of months they had settled down well, increased their spans of attention and were able to attend classes in OT. Meanwhile my own knowledge and experience increased as I continued to learn various skills - I often helped my friend Bonnie Adams to warp up a loom for some complicated project - she was a brilliant weaver and could follow the most intricate designs - I just did as I was told by the expert. Many of the residents could not follow patterns due to their disability but the staff had ways of simplifying the work for them - often by colour coded charts - and some of them were really beautiful even weavers. I still have a rug on my bed woven in our department.

Because teamwork was considered to be paramount, we were required twice a year to attend regular case conferences on all the residents that we worked with. There would be staff members there from all the different areas – residential, recreation, occupational therapy, academic, vocational, psychology and medical if the resident had medical problems. Sometimes there would be a family member in attendance as well. We were each required to present a report on the progress or otherwise of the subject and be prepared to explain and defend our own program for that person. These case conferences were so valuable as it meant that different departments were not working in isolation but could plan cohesive programs for the resident. The emphasis was always on preparing the resident for the least restrictive environment possible and programs were planned accordingly.

That year passed very pleasantly and productively - and then a job was advertised in the school again and I applied for it and was successful this time. Having been so happy in OT I had mixed feelings about moving on but never regretted my move as I spent 13 happy years in the school working with a lot of wonderful residents and dedicated staff. During that time I worked with many different groups of residents - all the way from high-functioning people learning skills that would equip them to live independently to very low-functioning residents for whom skills such as grasping a spoon or a cup were a very real challenge. For some years I worked in Sense Training, there were just four of us in that smaller building and we did a lot of team teaching. I had fish in a tank in my room and a blue budgie in a cage - I used to let him out every morning at News Time and he would walk round the table visiting each resident in turn. At that time I had a little deaf-blind boy in my class and he was especially fond of `Bluey' as we called him. One weekend one of the residents who was fascinated by Bluey in an obsessional way broke in to my classroom and abducted him but Bluey escaped - it was the middle of winter and that little bird wouldn't have lasted more than a few seconds so that was the end of Bluey but I didn't repeat the experiment.

For a year I was in charge of the communications program - many of our residents were non-verbal and our communications programs ranged from a system of pictographic symbols to which we taught pointing techniques, all the way to speech lessons for those who just needed a little speech improvement. I also worked for some years in the Senior section of the school with quite high-functioning residents - some of whom had been living out in the community but had committed some misdemeanour and been put into Michener Centre. I always thought that was a good solution for them as they were all at least somewhat intellectually disabled and in some countries including Australia the prisons are full of intellectually disabled and functionally illiterate people.

Michener Centre had a very good Staff Development department and many courses were advertised that employees could take if they were interested. I took full advantage of those, always feeling that there was more that I could learn about disabilities in general and about my job in particular. When Red Deer College started their accredited course leading to a Diploma of Rehabilitation I became a training teacher and had practicum students in my classroom.

During my years at Michener there was a great emphasis on down-sizing - everyone who could function in independent but supported living was encouraged to do so and many others moved into group homes with a bit more support and supervision but still as much freedom and independence as possible. I became a chapter representative in my union, Alberta Union of Provincial Employees (AUPE) and eventually the chairperson of my chapter and attended many worthwhile Union conferences. I was also the representative for my area on EMAC which was the Employee Management Advisory Committee. We met once a month and sorted out numerous staff/administration matters of contention that otherwise could have become subjects for grievance. I felt that that was so valuable and should be established in every large workplace - it's amazing how many problems can be defused by people from both sides sitting round a table with a cup of coffee, a bit of goodwill and the agreement to compromise when necessary.

Michener Centre was good to our whole family - Madeline worked on the residential unit Ash, Celene worked on Juniper, also a residential unit but a lower functioning one where she was unlucky enough to be bitten by a hepatitis carrier from whom she caught the disease, Nick worked on the food truck and Tom worked in housekeeping on the north side - in fact only two of our children did not work in Michener Centre!

During my time at Michener Centre I decided to study for an Arts Degree with University of Athabasca which is a correspondence university in northern Alberta. This took me seven years and was hard work at times but the support for students was outstanding; shortly after I registered in a course the materials would arrive – very comprehensive study notes, all the text books I could possibly need (to keep, not on loan) and lots of advice on how to tackle the work. I was also assigned a telephone tutor whom I could phone reversing the charges whenever I needed help. When I was ready to write the exam I would nominate a supervisor (usually the principal of the school at Michener Centre), the exam would be sent to her and I would go to her house to write it under her supervision.

In 1987 I decided to offer my services to CUSO (Canadian University Services Overseas) and was appointed to a position in Nigeria so I regretfully tendered my resignation to Michener Centre and was farewelled by my fellow staff members at a magnificent luncheon. I look back on my 14 years at Michener Centre as one of the best periods of my working life and I have so many good memories of both staff and residents - I feel privileged to have worked there.