Guest Speaker Kate Pinsonneault: Navigating Dual Relationships

Guest Speaker -- Kate Pinsonneault: Navigating Dual Relationships in Small Communities & Work Camps

What is tricky about being in a dual relationship with someone? One where you have two different roles -- say you're their guide, co-worker, teacher, water taxi driver, or supervisor -- AND you provide them a listening ear through a hard time one day. What if you have to give them some tough feedback the following week? Or what if you're a sounding board for their family woes, and you're also on a work crew with their cousin?

Our guest speaker, Kate Pinsonneault, is a clinical counsellor and supervisor with decades of experience in everything from clinical trauma healing to infant mental health (yes, it's a thing!). Kate has also spent much of her life living on a boat and working in small, remote communities such as the float-home village of Echo Bay, B.C.

Jobs are often seasonal in remote communities, and Kate knows what it means to juggle various roles from working as the Stewardship Coordinator overseeing salmon restoration programs, to running the Echo Bay general store pumping marine gas, cooking for a tree planting company, and being the special needs teacher at the one room school.  Kate understands what it's like to be part of a remote community that is rugged, resilient, and also has some particular vulnerabilities. "If you’re hurt and there's weather, you’re not getting out and the helicopter's not coming in. As a community you become resilient through being interdependent on each other."

Join us Tuesday May 17th for a LIVE interactive presentation & discussion on navigating "dual relationships" in the field:

• Risks and benefits to dual relationships
  
• Changing "hats"
  
• Times and places to offer support
  
• Strategies for setting “Gentle boundaries"
  
• Skills to wrap up a supportive conversation.
  

In Spring 2022 Mental Health Wilderness First Aid is hosting monthly guest speakers, all mental health counsellors with backgrounds or experience in remote area skills. These online live events are an awesome way to network with others in the industry as well as access and learn directly from a variety of experts in the mental health field. Views expressed are the guest speaker's own and may or may not reflect the views of MHWFA.