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www.oakvillebeaver.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, July 9, 2010 · 22 Living Oakville Beaver LIVING EDITOR: ANGELA BLACKBURN By Angela Blackburn OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF Phone: 905-337-5560 Fax: 905-337-5571 e-mail: ablackburn@oakvillebeaver.com Outspoken and true to social work tradition hen Nancy Brown came to Oakville in the 1970s, she found a very different world than she'd been working in in inner city Toronto -- never mind the poorest areas of Washington, D.C. "There were no big rats. There were no poor people from Appalachia. There were no houses of prostitution across the street from the office and there was no need for an armed guard in the lobby," said Brown. The daughter of a U.S. Navy chaplain who had eyed an art history degree, but opted for social work qualifications from some of the best women's colleges picturesque Massachusetts had to offer, is truly a study of contradictions. Retired as of May, the former executive director of Halton Family Services remains a consummate professional -- and also a hard worker true to the social work tradition. Clad in an ochre-coloured suit and pale green blouse, Brown speaks about her 45 years in the social work field. While on one hand she outlines the top-notch schools she attended, she also speaks to how hard students worked -- through the summers even -- and finished up with two nine-month, full-time job placements that she said, "prepared them to hit the deck running." Brown's placements en route to a masters in social work via Mount W "There were no big rats. There were no poor people from Apalachia. There were no houses of prostitution across the street from the office and there was no need for an armed guard in the lobby." Nancy Brown, retired executive director, Halton Family Services NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER PASSION FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE: Nancy Brown has retired after 45 years in social work, most recently as head of Halton Family Services where she balanced administrative and counselling victims of childhood sexual abuse. Holy Oak College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and then Smith College School for Social Work in North Hampton, Massachusetts, began at the veterans' psychiatric hospital just south of Boston where she had already been volunteering. Her compassion is immediately evident as she speaks of the men there who were "broken." Brown's next placement was working in Family Services in Washington, D.C. "It was in a very poor part of the city," said Brown, recalling that on one of her first days there she spotted a large thing on the sidewalk. "It was a huge dead rat," said Brown, adding, "Across the street from the office was a brothel. It was so dangerous that if we met someone there in the evening, there was an armed guard in the lobby." Brown, as a newlywed to U.S. Navy submarine officer Lt. John Sweet, took her first job after graduation with family services in Norfolk, Virginia. Fourteen months later, at age 25, she was a widow when her husband's submarine sank. As Brown extracts a packet of tissue from her purse, she continues speaking about how she moved back home with her parents, Oliver and Alma Jones, who were living in Newport, Rhode Island. Brown then worked at a navy psychiatric facility, participating in a demonstration project that espoused the then cutting-edge, but taken for granted today philosophy of a team of mental health professionals achieving greater impact in schools. After a stint in the Newport hospital's outpatient mental health facility, Brown married George Brown, and worked in a school system outside of Detroit where she dealt with many immigrants from the cultural poverty of southern Appalachia coming into northern Detroit to get auto jobs as well as a wide range of challenged children. Upon moving to New Jersey for her husband's job, Brown worked at a children's diagnosis and treatment centre at a Jewish Hospital and a community mental health clinic before the couple was transferred to Canada. See Brown page 23