Danielle Schubrink started her career in the oil and gas industry. After 10 years, she realized she was not happy there, and that it did not align with who she was and what she believed in.
She knew she wanted to help people, and thought it would be in a human services-based field. Danielle took a chance, and applied as the Receptionist for Red Deer’s Heritage Family Services. And now she never would have imagined she would be in the position she is in today.
Danielle grew up in Red Deer, but not with her community, family, culture, or language - she was raised with a Western, non-Indigenous lens. Her Grandfather was in Residential School, stripping away her language and culture. Red Deer does not have a very large Indigenous community - often finding herself the only Indigenous student in school.
Coming to Heritage has opened many doors for Danielle - being allowed to explore her background, her family, where she comes from. She says it has been a real journey of learning the acceptance that she is Indigenous, and working in a place to be able to work with Indigenous youth has given her the opportunity to learn to celebrate her culture.
About three years ago, she made the move from the receptionist’s position to human resources position, and then training - giving her the opportunity to perform many different roles in the organization. At about the same time, she was approached by Elder Beverly Keeshig-Soonias, the facility’s Elder, if she could mentor Danielle as she prepared for retirement. This new learning moved Danielle into the lead cultural role.
In her new role, Danielle now leads a group of Indigenous Resource Workers, who work in programs with youth to help bring cultural awareness and programming - a lot of different aspects into the program - like incorporating Indigenous food, traditional teaching like medicine wheels, Grandfather teaching, crafts, beading - including one Indigenous Resource Worker who can hunt.
This group works to bring as much of a cultural or Indigenous aspect to the home as much as possible, while at the same time bringing knowledge and understanding to non-Indigenous staff so they can better support the Indigenous youth they work with.
Danielle has also recently created a Truth and Reconciliation Committee at HFS; combining Indigenous and non-Indigenous staff members, including the centre’s president as well as a member of the LGBTQ+ community - another important voice on the committee.
Her first plan of action was to hire additional Indigenous staff to work with the youth in the centres, and she has seen an increase in Indigenous resource workers. (A silver lining to this year’s pandemic was that they had the ability to offer people jobs!)
The team’s first meeting was November 9. It served as an introduction to the team and some of the work they hope to do. Danielle has been in contact with other agencies, and is proud of the fact that training and orientation includes Indigenous Teaching - it is mandatory that new staff receive six hours of instruction before they work in a house with an Indigenous youth.
The team is already responding to the calls of action, and as an agency, they meet to discuss those calls - what they’ve done well, what they need, and what they can do better. Before their next meeting, the team has been tasked with reading through the Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action so they are familiar with them and how they relate to the work they’re doing at HFS. The hope is to modify these calls for their level of service. For instance, keeping Aboriginal families together; although they are not directly responsible for apprehension and placement, they will work with other groups to create specialized programs to keep siblings together.
They are already integrating Indigenous culture and learnings into every aspect of their work with clients. The youth will smudge every morning, and every evening before bed. The teaching that everything is related and connected, and that we are not only treating each other with respect, that the earth is respected.
Ensuring staff are educated on the history of residential schools and the impact of intergenerational trauma is a call that Danielle has been able to bring to the centre with her ALIGN training, she has worked to have this training included in all orientation sessions.
Danielle says, “It hasn’t been easy, but I’m proud of where we are now and how far we’ve come! I am so happy and excited, and everyone on the committee is excited, passionate and honoured to be a part of it, and to keep moving forward in a good way, and see how we can serve these children and families in the best way we can. Ideally, these children should be home with their families, but unfortunately, we don’t have that decision, we’re just trying to give them the best care that we can.”
