We are IH: Care coordinator started career in health care at 17

Olivia started with IH at Lillooet Hospital in 2007 as a housekeeper and food service worker while still in high school. While getting her degree at Thompson Rivers University, she continued working at the Lillooet Hospital casually in support services and then as a health care aide in Mountain View Lodge. Through accessing the Employed Student Nurse Program, Olivia was able to work during both her second and third years at the Lillooet Hospital.

Upon graduation, Olivia spent a year working in Fort St. John before taking a position at Penticton Regional Hospital in their overflow unit. Later, she moved into postpartum, gynecology and then obstetrics where she met the “most amazing team.” Olivia says that during her maternity leave, she also taught in the Licensed Practical Nurse (LPN) Program at Okanagan College for a semester.

“I honestly thought that I would be in obstetrics forever, but my husband and I had to make a difficult decision to relocate back to Lillooet to be closer to my parents as we were having challenges with securing childcare. So, in 2019, I returned to Lillooet District Hospital to work in rural acute emergency department (ED),” explains Olivia.

In 2021, after working in the ED she fell in love with long-term care, saying, “It’s funny how the universe works. I really have fallen in love with this area of nursing. I love the philosophy of long-term care. It’s an area where it’s easy to have fun and laugh.” Olivia has been working in long-term care since 2021 with a stint as a long-term care regional educator.

Honouring trust, creating a sense of safety

On any given day, Olivia is juggling staffing challenges, connecting with families, assessing residents and providing insight to the LPN team she works alongside. Additionally, Olivia and the LPN team run care conferences, providing staff education, support resident care planning, and more.

“In long-term care specifically, I recognize that there is a lot of inherent loss,” she says, adding that most people come to long-term care after living very full independent lives and then they package up that life into a single room in a facility full of strangers. “This is a life-changing adjustment both for the person coming into long-term care, but also for their loved ones, spouse or children.

“I try to work with families and support my team to create a space where we can promote independence and personhood to the greatest extent. I also focus on creating a sense of safety and trust for their families and partners in care. It’s a great act of trust to have someone come into our care here at Mountain View Lodge and I feel like we have a duty to honour that.”

Honouring the trust given to those working in long-term care motivates Olivia to continuously improve herself as a leader for her team. “I’m still figuring it out, as I’m sure we all are,” she says. She hopes to be the support system her team needs so they in turn feel fulfilled and motivated “to continue to do the great work they are doing in the realm of dementia care and seniors care.”

Olivia tells us her proudest moments are the little moments when patients and families take the time to bring in cards or notes saying thank you. It may seem like such a simple gesture, but to Olivia, it reaffirms that we are doing really good work. “It means the world to me,” she says.

To her, reconciliation means being intentional in finding ways to show up to support the Indigenous residents and their families. “There is no one size fits all approach,” she says. “It’s individualized and family specific.”

To Olivia, inclusion and belonging means we all have a seat at the table and a role to play in this organization. Because Olivia has worked in so many different areas, she has a lot of lived experience and appreciates the importance of all those roles.

She says she remembers receiving advice from her older brother, a leader in a large company, about motivating teams. He said, "When your team is successful, it means you are successful," and that has stuck with her throughout her career

Olivia loves being outside and spends a lot of time gardening and growing and arranging flowers. She loves to spend time on the trails with her kids and dogs. She loves to be inside reading a good book, cooking, baking and painting just as much, and claims to have more hobbies than she has hours in the day.

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