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23 · Friday, July 9, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com Brown plans to keep helping people Continued from page 22 Brown secured a supervisor's position at the Toronto Catholic Children's Aid Society. She and George moved to Oakville just over a year later to purchase their first home and Brown found herself reaching for the stars as she applied to the position of executive director of the then Oakville Family Service Bureau. To her surprise she was hired to fill the gap left by the late Ron Coupland (former Oakville Liberal Bonnie Brown's husband) who was taking over the helm of the Halton Children's Aid Society. After being founded in 1954, the agency had, by the time Brown arrived in the the 1970s, six people working in its office and had just expanded into the credit counselling field. The Oakville Beaver was soon on Brown's doorstep literally to interview her on her new position. "I remember saying I just wanted to do the best job I can," said Brown. While she said she was first drawn to social work with the thought that she was more apt to get a job in that field than in a museum with an art history degree, she also said she had the totally wrong impression of a social worker. "I figured social workers were dowdy, unattractive old maids who traipsed through slums grabbing whiskey bottles from alcoholics who lived on the street," she said. Instead, she found that social workers deal with the societal aspects of mental health issues. At the same time, Brown admits she was deeply inspired by the complexity of the human mind and the commitment of social workers in the likes of The Three Faces of Eve and Sybil in her youth. Upon arriving in Oakville however, Brown admitted this town's face looked quite different from some of the places she'd previously worked. She pauses to tell a story about one of her first clients here, a couple who came to family services to say they were at the end of their rope with their child who was continuing to be totally disobedient, noth- "What I would love is if Oakville were to become the most caring and compassionate community in Canada." Nancy Brown, retired executive director, Halton Family Services Nancy Brown withstanding they had purchased the child a sailboat and tennis court. Before long however Brown said she saw the issues here were the same as anywhere else except that perhaps a poor family here looked more like a middle class family in other circles. Whether to pay the bills or turn on heat or buy food were the same issues with which many families struggled. As funding for social services used to be abundant and was expanded with the advent of credit counselling and employee counselling as well as woman abuse programs opening, Brown's office soon expanded to become Halton Family Services and its client list expanded. When government pulled out of much of its funding of family services, particularly the credit counselling, through the 1990s and then the recession struck a couple of years ago, Brown said the client list had already grown -- even moreso with a skyrocketing population -- but agencies like Halton Family Services were left with large client lists and dependent on United Way funding and fundraising and had themselves been "cut to the bone" as agencies long before. Over the years, Brown said changing attitudes and improved services also led to the exposure of surviving childhood sexual abuse as an issue that had previously remained in family closets. In fact, as Brown has always continued to provide counselling, as well as being the corporate leader of Halton Family Services, her client list came to include almost exclusively survivors of what she calls "horrific childhood sexual abuse." Both were a heavy load, emotionally. After eyeing retirement at 65, particularly after cancer surgery five years ago, Brown stayed on two additional years -- first because her husband was waiting another year to retire and then because of the economy. The financial landscape isn't much changing as not-for-profit agencies continue their "high wire" acts that are becoming almost Mission Impossible scenarios, according to Brown. And political will to fund social services seems to be following a trend toward the general populace "wanting more for ourselves and being less caring about people who are really struggling," said Brown. "What I would love is if Oakville were to become the most caring and compassionate community in Canada," said Brown. Despite being an outspoken advocate for social change -- true to the social work tradition and born of tending to the consequences of not caring for others as a society -- Brown is making room for new blood. While trained to keep a professional distance, Brown said she will always carry with her thoughts of those she has met over the years. She recalls sitting on a wooden chair (as per training so as not to carry lice away from a client's home) talking to a woman who looked like she was 50, but was likely 25 with children hanging on her in a filthy house. She recalls the men who have landed in prison after falling victim to childhood sexual abuse. She remembers a young woman who had been sexually abused and became promiscuous, luring men to bed only to inform them of their inadequacy as a means of getting even. She also notes that in the 1980s, there were only something like 200 documented cases of multiple personality disorder in history, ever, but than since the early 1990s, she personally has seen 25 clients exhibiting the disorder. "That work is so complex, it is by nature, long-term," she said. A few clients are so deeply traumatized they "are almost constantly in crisis. There's a very high risk of suicide," said Brown. Over the years, some clients have been lost to suicide and that is one of the toughest things a social worker must face, said Brown. And while it is hard to move away, after 45 years, and facing more cancer investigation herself, Brown said she's content to step back from the emotional stress of both clients' lives and financial worries as head of the local social service agency. Brown will never be bowing out however. Soon after retiring, her husband who is involved with Kerr Street Ministries and The Meeting House, had her serv- ing dinner to more than 100 people at Kerr Street Ministries Dream Centre. And as Brown works on her garden, turns her creativity toward her own kitchen and enjoys the simple life, Brown points out that through her father, the navy chaplain, her family can find roots in ministry work back 400 years. Perhaps, however, she's done her part of it. "After 45 years working, it was time. When your work is helping people, it's hard to stop. I will keep helping people, I will just do it in a different way," said Brown. 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