Elementary school teacher Krista Patterson routinely embraces one key principle she feels helps her connect with students on a deeper level, improving results inside several County classrooms.

The Grade 1-2 teacher at Stuart Baker Elementary School was recently presented with an Ontario Public School Boards’ Association (OPSBA) achievement award, recognizing outstanding, exemplary and unique contributions to students and the wider school community. She was one of two TLDSB staff to receive the award this year.

The honour was for Patterson’s work at Cardiff Elementary School, where she taught from 2016 until September – most recently in the Kindergarten class.

“I’m a pretty positive person, so I try to bring that to my teaching. I’m always approaching everything from a strength-based lens, so looking at what the students can do rather than what they can’t do. Over time, you get better at helping the child do their best,” Patterson said.

Creating an environment where students are treated firmly and fairly, with equity always top of mind, has been the difference for Patterson. She’s realized, too, that to truly reach all students takes a variety of learning mediums and methods. Patterson said she’s constantly thinking about ways to keep her classes exciting and engaging.

She taught students with a wide-range of abilities – most were at regular grade level, while others were non-verbal or on the autism spectrum, requiring a different approach.

“Lesson planning often looks like ‘OK, other students may be able to access or show their learning, but what about those who don’t use words? You have visual learners, auditory learners, kinesthetic learners. So, I make sure I have a piece of everything…to try to incorporate pictures, songs and movement into things.

“Not everybody can learn from sitting and listening,” Patterson said.

When dealing with behaviour, the teacher has found success implementing a reward system encouraging kids to stay on the straight and narrow. Setting clear expectations, being consistent, and having an instructional routine has helped curb issues before they become a major problem.

One of Patterson’s strengths – and why she was singled out for the award – is what she does outside of the classroom. TLDSB trustee Esther Childs, at an Oct. 22 meeting, said.

Patterson was nominated by a parent in the Cardiff community for going above and beyond with students.

Asked what that entails, Patterson said she routinely connects families with supports in the community, such as Point in Time and Five Counties children’s services. She’s been involved with various collection efforts, gathering winter clothes for children in need.

The teacher has also donated books to families and made arrangements with food banks in the area to ensure there’s always food at students’ homes.

Patterson is also a prolific learner, routinely registering in professional development courses to improve her teaching methods.

She completed a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) workshop so she could better support a student living with the disability. She’s also taken several special needs-based classes.

Born and raised in Haliburton County, Patterson said she feels proud to be making a difference in her community every day.

“It feels nice to know my families have felt supported, because that’s always one of my main goals. This has been a very humbling experience, knowing this award happened because someone who has trusted me with their child thinks I helped, it means so much,” Patterson said.

Sarah Patrick recalls the headlines “looming ominously” on the front pages of The Globe and Mail in September and October of 2007.

They included, ‘Born into the abusive grip of a cult’; ‘light sessions and school’s dark past’ and ‘apology for hurt and pain’.

In her book, Binding Shame: Life in a Cult of Obedience, the Algonquin Highlands resident says she could not believe her eyes at the time. She was intensely panicked as she read the articles, in which students she had once taught at Grenville Christian College, near Brockville, related “horrors” of abuse they’d experienced at the school where she’d lived, taught, and before that, been a student for four years.

Fast forward to November 2023, and former students of Grenville Christian College won a class-action lawsuite against the college for physical, psychological and sexual abuse.

Patrick started writing about her experiences at the Community of Jesusi-nspired institution when The Globe broke the stories. She said it began with her recounting her boarding school antics. Then, she wrote about the ‘light sessions’ at Grenville. Patrick describes those in her book as, “where an individual’s faults were publicly and humiliatingly exposed, eliciting a forced confession and change of behaviour.”

She had professor at Metropolitan Toronto University, and author, Sarah Henstra read the work. She said Henstra advised her, “there’s a real story here” but she needed to dig a little deeper.

“But it was incredibly difficult to write about it,” Patrick says. “ My biggest driver for wanting to write was to try to bring these two sides of me together; the person who’d been abused by them, and then the person who became part of the abusive system.”

She said writing the book has been a type of therapy.

Patrick said she was raised in “the tough love” era, and felt Grenville staff were paid to do a job. “At the time, I hated it, but never would have thought it was abuse.” It is only now, as an adult, she concedes there were “aspects of that discipline that were really bad… I can acknowledge that as abuse; public shaming, ostracization, beatings, light sessions…”

She said she was never sexually abused or beaten.

Later becoming a teacher, Patrick recalls she was at times “angry” because her students had freedoms she did not as a pupil, “so I took it out on them.”

Asked about the worst thing she ever did, Patrick said she outed a gay student to the headmaster. “I was worried about getting in trouble for not exposing it… that I would be corrected and disciplined myself, and that kid was disciplined heavily for it.”

However, she said she had been brainwashed from the time she was a student, despite having rebelled and left the college at times.

Nonetheless, she views the book as an apology to former students she may have hurt.

“I can’t please everybody. It’s not going to be enough. I had to write it for me and let the chips fall where they may. I really wanted to bring these two parts of myself together. I was hoping the book would solve that problem and it hasn’t because they are two divergent sides of me and I’m understanding them more and I’m starting to accept it’s OK that it’s not completely reconciled with me.”

Asked about her relationship with God today, Patrick said it’s taken a long time but she has started as a new Christian with a Baptist church – not that she ever blamed God.

“I put my faith in people and not in God and that’s how it went sideways. People are so fallible. I’m not a bad person… things have happened to me… I didn’t cause this to happen and I didn’t deserve it and nobody deserves abuse or perceived abuse.”

Patrick adds living in the Highlands has been healing for her, as “there is a peace here I hadn’t experienced in my life.”

The book is available at Amazon and Master’s Book Store in Haliburton.

Rev. Canon Joan Cavanaugh-Clark met Andrew Hodson in 2017. At the time, Hodson was with the Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge (CMHA HKPR), as its only crisis worker.

It was before the establishment of the Mobile Crisis Response Team (MCRT) in 2021, but laid the groundwork for the MCRT, which saw its first-ever OPP full-time, permanent County appointment in February of last year.

Cavanaugh-Clark recalled how Hodson, now on leave from the CMHA HKPR, and an OPP officer came to St. Paul’s Anglican Church one day. The policeman had been driving down a side road between Minden and Kinmount and saw a woman huddled around a campfire, with only a tarp for shelter and a stainless steel bowl (apparently for boiling water and cooking). “And, that’s all she had. She really had some mental health issues,” Cavanaugh-Clark recalled in a recent interview.

Apparently, the woman had a van she used to live in, but it had been towed away. So, Hodson and the OPP officer came to the church to see if they could assist the homeless woman.

“Genuine need,” Cavanaugh-Clark said of the crisis. She said Hodson and the officer had their hands somewhat tied as the woman owned the land she was living on. She was not a squatter. The church offered to try to get the woman’s van back, but the OPP officer advised against it, as the woman now had no driver’s license or insurance.

However, the church could get the woman’s belongings from the van. They did that as well as purchase a tent and cot for her to sleep in temporarily. They also bought a cooler. Three times a week, church volunteers would visit to ensure the woman had food and water to go along with the shelter.

OPP Const. Joel Imbeau is now the police-lead on the MCRT – in conjunction with CMHA HKPR. He said he calls upon Cavanaugh-Clark from time to time, though both say it is a last resort as the church has limited financial resources. However, Cavanaugh-Clark said it is within their mandate to help. One thing they will do is secure temporary housing at a local motel when needed.

“I trust Joel and the CMHA worker. I trust their judgement. Joel can call me. The relationship is really kind of unique,” Cavanaugh-Clark said.

Community paramedicine program

Chris Parish heads up the community paramedicine program for Haliburton County, and also has a relationship with the MCRT team, and Imbeau in particular.

Parish and his paramedics are often the MCRT’s first call after police have responded to an incident and received consent from a client. The paramedics work hand-in-hand with Haliburton Highlands Health Services’ Geriatric Assessment and Intervention Network (GAIN). Every Tuesday, Parish meets with the GAIN team “to talk about our mutual people.

“We go in and assess a patient. We’re the medical piece,” he said. But they do more than that. A team of two always goes in. While one assesses the patient’s health, the other can do a mental health check by, for example, seeing what the person has in the refrigerator. “Is there food? Is it rotten? I don’t know what it is when wives die. Men tend to live on chocolate milk. So, then, they complain about diarrhea,” Parish says.

Community paramedics are also looking out for the safety of the patient. They may make a referral to an occupational therapist. Perhaps the person needs grab bars. They are also assessing cognitive health. Parish said prior to Imbeau and the MCRT team taking shape, “the mental health piece kind of fell to us because there was nothing else. But honestly, we aren’t that well-trained in mental health.”

He said since Imbeau was appointed last February, “it’s just been a huge weight off our shoulders because we were doing it, but it was like, ‘are we doing everything? Should we do more? Should we do less?’ And now, we have experts (Joel and the CMHA worker) we can refer to.”

Behind the scenes, there are a lot of phone calls between MCRT partners. “What’s funny is, it all comes together at the same time. And this is Haliburton County… because Haliburton County is small town, I will get phone calls and Joel will get phone calls and neighbours will call us.”

He provides an example of someone being discharged from hospital but people being worried they won’t be able to cope at home. Folks call Parish or Imbeau to ensure someone checks in on that person.

Parish added due to the small-town nature, or perhaps the personalities of workers, they seem to be able to get consent.

Just as the MCRT wants to stop people from repeatedly calling OPP, the paramedicine program aims to keep people out of hospital. “It reduces the chance of you going back to the ER 30 per cent in the first four months, then goes down a little bit, and comes back up,” Parish said. It also reduces the time spent in hospital.

Just as the MCRT wants to stop people from repeatedly calling OPP, the paramedicine program aims to keep people out of hospital. “It reduces the chance of you going back to the ER 30 per cent in the first four months, then goes down a little bit, and comes back up,” Parish said. It also reduces the time spent in hospital.

Just as the MCRT wants to stop people from repeatedly calling OPP, the paramedicine program aims to keep people out of hospital. “It reduces the chance of you going back to the ER 30 per cent in the first four months, then goes down a little bit, and comes back up,” Parish said. It also reduces the time spent in hospital.

“Due to limited resources, it is beneficial for the client when we work together with our community partners, including the OPP, to provide the best outcomes for our seniors,” Nelson said.

Another stop Imbeau makes during the course of his work is local food and heat banks.

Judy MacDuff of 4Cs in Haliburton said she had worked with Imbeau and Parish in the past. She recalled them asking about getting food for a client who was struggling with mental health issues.

“Joel came up and packed her a box of food and took it down and then he came back a second time for her.” Although the woman had yet to register as a food bank client, MacDuff said she couldn’t say ‘no’ to the request.

Speaking to the MCRT, MacDuff said, “I think that’s a big help.”

More complex cases

Other partners Imbeau has called on include the Youth Wellness Hub operated by Point in Time in Haliburton; The YWCA shelter in Minden; A Place Called Home in Lindsay; the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto; Fourcast Addiction Services, and the list goes on and on.

Other partners Imbeau has called on include the Youth Wellness Hub operated by Point in Time in Haliburton; The YWCA shelter in Minden; A Place Called Home in Lindsay; the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto; Fourcast Addiction Services, and the list goes on and a wellness check, only to find a client who had extreme mental health issues combined with a urinary tract infection. The person lived alone, recently had their landline cut, had no means of transportation and no family. The response required paramedics, food banks, and CMHA.

“I am blessed we live in Haliburton County. I couldn’t imagine doing this job in downtown Hamilton. I don’t know how you’d do it. I don’t know how you’d support someone. I don’t know how you’d get that individuality. Get that individual “I am blessed we live in Haliburton County. I couldn’t imagine doing this job in downtown Hamilton. I don’t know how you’d do it. I don’t know how you’d support someone. I don’t know how you’d get that individuality. Get that individual to attend. Get the local partnerships. Down there (Hamilton), you don’t have time for that.” Imbeau said.

“We have a very good relationship with community partners. We also have the ability to use CMHA. which has tons of resources and facilities if clients suffer from mental illness or addiction.

The Ontario Living Wage Network (OLWN) released its latest report Nov. 18, indicating people in their ‘east’ region, which includes Haliburton County, would need to make $21.65 an hour to make ends meet.

The report comes on the heels of a May study by the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit (HKPR), which put the Highlands’ figure at $20.60 an hour as of 2023.

With minimum wage in the province climbing to $17.20 an hour Oct. 1, both documents point to a living wage gap in our region.

The report’s author is the OLWN’s Anne Coleman. She said while inflation had “calmed” in the past year, this year’s rates have still increased by an average of 3.4 per cent.

She said it’s “mainly due to rising costs for rent in our province. Inflation of food costs may have calmed but still remain high relative to earlier years.”

SIRCH Community Services executive director Gena Robertson runs one of the only Ontario Living Wage Networkcertified organizations in the Highlands, ensuring people are paid a living wage.

“If you look at the social determinants of health, which is what we try and do in most of our programs, and also the broader picture of what is poverty, or what helps with poverty reduction, employment is a big one,” Robertson said.

She added, “employment of any kind is good, but if you work all day and still can’t pay the bills, that’s not great. And we see that every day.”

According to the OLWN, the GTA continues to have the highest living wage rate at $26 an hour, up from $25.05. The lowest, at $19.50, up from $18.85, is The London-Elgin-Oxford region.

“There is still no place in Ontario where you could work (minimum wage) full-time and cover all your expenses,” Coleman said.

She added the organization’s mandate is to sign up certified living wage employers across Ontario. For certification, employees must make at least a local living wage, and many see a raise as a result.

The living wage calculation includes a modest basket of goods and services that are used to determine the annual expenses required by a household. The basic necessities included in the basket of goods accounts for a large portion of the annual expenses. The costs of food and shelter are two of the biggest expenses in the living wage calculation. These costs increased by over 18 per cent compared to general inflation of 13.4 per cent between 2018 and 2022. Higher fuel prices are another contributor.

The OLWN uses single adults, single parents, and families of four. They calculated a family of four spends $12,541 on food annually in the east region, with $6,022 for a single parent, and $4,288 for a single person.

Shelter costs were pegged at $22,539 for a family of four; $20,055 for a single parent, and $17,223 for a person living on their own.

They also incorporated the cost of clothing and footwear, transportation, medical, life and critical illness costs, cell and internet, child care, and other expenses. They noted there are government transfers that also impact living wages.

Robertson said she would encourage employers to seek certification; while recognizing it is not always easy for small businesses or non-profits. She would not want increased wages to lead to layoffs.

In May, the HKPR District Health Unit released its 2023 Nutritious Food Basket Report.

The report highlights the struggles faced by low-income families in the City of Kawartha Lakes, County of Haliburton, and Northumberland County to pay for necessities because incomes and social assistance rates are not keeping up with rising costs.

In the report, HKPR compares incomes and expenses of several household scenarios to show how much money would be left over for families and individuals after paying for housing and food. In some cases, those expenses alone exceed income, with not enough money left to pay for other basic needs.

This report found that 12.9 per cent of households in Haliburton County are considered low income and struggled to pay for rent, bills, and healthy food.