Helping community members in need access the proper services is a passion for Lory Rochon.
In her role as the Cariboo Chilcotin Partners for Literacy's community outreach worker, Rochon works with 800 different people a year. She helps educate them on a wide variety of issues and navigate governmental bureaucracy, often going above and beyond her work hours.
"(My work) is important because there are so many people who just don't have the capacity to get their needs met in a timely matter," Rochon said. "Some of them could (have a) historical fear of learning, or historical failure of attempting things and it's really hard to try something new."
Rochon has a diverse working background, first getting a job with the City of Vancouver at 14 years old. Throughout her various jobs, Rochon worked primarily in the social services sector and received 10 diplomas from various universities and colleges. During this time she said she gained an appreciation and understanding for the importance of financial and governmental literacy.
For several years before 2005 Rochon was working for School District 27 as a teacher on call until one day she woke up paralyzed on her right side. After six months of being bedridden, she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. While her condition has since improved, Rochon said she didn't want to potentially put children at risk if her condition worsened and decided to instead go back into social work.
"I'm a lifelong learner. I have eight different diplomas and four to five years of post-secondary academics. None of it was done enough in 10 years or in one little package to get a degree, but a lot on human-based services in specialities," Rochon remarked, noting that math is her "magic."
After a few years with ESP Consulting where she worked as a Career Development Practitioner, Rochon joined CCPL in 2012 where she remained ever since. She said there are a lot of different components to her job but noted everything she does is interconnected.
Rochon divides her clients into two main groups, long-term learners and short-term learners. Long-term learners are people she typically helps with literacy issues related to technology, reading and writing, math and post-secondary education upgrading. Oftentimes she'll set people up with one-on-one tutours or she helps them access the services they need.
"I try not to let any of my students get stuck on a question because they'll put the whole thing aside and in six months they're too embarrassed to go back. I'd rather give them the answer so they keep moving," Rochon remarked.
Her short-term learners, meanwhile, make up a large percentage of the intervention work she does. Rochon estimates around 80 per cent of these students are seniors and she mostly helps them navigate paperwork related to pensions, disability and anything that involves the provincial or federal governments. Many of the issues that she tackles relate back to financial literacy in some way.
Often, Rochon said she finds herself helping seniors who don't understand the government's benefit and pension systems. Oftentimes she noted that if a spouse of a senior dies they don't what forms to fill out so the Canadian Revenue Agency looks at the resulting changes to their income. Likewise is someone has a spouse in long-term care, Rochon said she knows what forms to fill out to untangle finances so that the money for that care is only taken from one pension, not both.
"Probably the biggest reward (for me) is seeing someone who has been struggling and suffering along, living on tuna fish, eating up their assets and then finding out about a benefit they hadn't been accessing," Rochon said. "All the sudden they get all this retroactive money which completely changes their lives."
For example, Rochon explained how when a senior's health starts declining before they reach retirement age, they'll start accessing the Canada Pension Plan early, not realizing that this makes them ineligible for the Canada Pension Plan Disability Benefits. She said she's helped a few seniors appeal and provide their medical information to get their disability benefits retroactively.
"Some of it is a little weird. They might claim (on their taxes) single forever but they might be common law so they're both collecting GST. Then all of a sudden one passes away and now they want to claim the survivor benefits," Rochon remarked. "You can't say you were single for 20 years and then 'oh no I was married for 20 years, I want this benefit'. It forces the government to undo everything and start again, which they'll do. The CRA is really good to work with as long as you communicate with them."
Rochon's mandate also includes Indigenous Literacy which she does both in 100 Mile House and in the Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation. Typically she said she'll run tax workshops, help elders set up CRA accounts and promote the importance of advance care planning and wills.
"There's a lot of bureaucracy but a lot of it is just process and destigmatizing the feat of the computers, the fear of doing things online," Rochon explained. "When I do taxes I don't just take their T slips and say see you later. No no, honey, you have to sit beside me, I may be the fingers on the keyboard doing it for you but next year I want you sitting beside me and you do it and I'll support you.
"My primary goal has to be A) those most marginalized and B) always put it in a learning framework because that's what we're here for."
One thing Rochon enjoys about working for a non-profit like the CCPL is she can do her work in a more grassroots way. By getting down to her client's level she remarked she can help them more effectively and give them better outcomes. This can include going to the bank with her clients and going to medical appointments to help them communicate their problems.
"I really love my job, I really do. Do I get tired? Yes. Are there days I feel like screaming into a pillow? Yes. Do I take my clients' problems home? No," Rochon said. "It always feels good to celebrate other people's successes. If they put in the work, I'm happy for them and I like to be there and be a part of that."
Rochon encourages anyone who needs assistance in navigating government bureaucracy or the digital world to reach out to her at lory@caribooliteracy.com or 250-395-0655.
