Longtime Merritt social worker Ava Dean was recognized for her contributions to the field and her community earlier this month by the Thompson Nicola branch of the BC Association of Social Workers.
The Heart of the Grasslands Award is an annual one based on merit, and nominees are judged on their service to the community.
When Dean’s colleague and Thompson Rivers University social work instructor Michael Crawford phoned her to tell her he’d like to nominate her for the award, she wasn’t convinced.
“I thought I was being punked,” Dean said.
Sure enough, come March 16, Dean was presented with the award at a luncheon to mark Social Work Week at Kamloops’ Alliance Church.
Dean’s 30-plus years in social work began with her decision to try some courses at the University of Victoria in the early 1980s.
At the time, she was a 33-year-old single parent who was looking for better opportunities.
“I was kind of in dead-end jobs, working below the poverty level,” Dean said. “I thought, ‘Gee, I don’t know if I can do it, but I want my kids to have something better.’”
She went to university with the attitude that if she only lasted one year, at least she’d know she tried. As it turned out, university was a good fit.
Longtime Merritt social worker Ava Dean talks with Children and Family Development Minister Stephanie Cadieux at the Alliance Church in Kamloops on March 16, when she received the Heart of the Grasslands Award from the BC Association of Social Workers. Photo submitted
She settled on a social work major because it was also a good fit, given her values, beliefs and how she was raised, noting her parents were both involved in the communities they lived in.
“They both always had the view that if you give people a helping hand, they can then take care of themselves and that everybody falls on hard times, and it isn’t their fault,” Dean said.
In 1985, Dean completed her bachelor of social work degree and, realizing counselling was her favourite aspect of her work in the field, decided to pursue a master’s degree in social work from the University of British Columbia.
By 1987, Dean had completed her master’s degree coursework and had moved into counselling for people with mental health challenges, first working in Terrace and then transferring to Kamloops.
In 1989, she completed her thesis.
All the while, Dean sat on boards and committees related to the social work field, and in 1989 was instrumental in helping establish the Thompson Nicola branch of the BCASW — the very branch which honoured her contributions earlier this month.
Dean said advocating for social work as a profession was an important part of her professional life.
She helped network and rally support for a social work program at TRU (which was University College of the Cariboo at the time). This year marks the 25th year for TRU’s social work program.
She worked with probation to get after-hours services for clients, recognizing that many of them deal with several agencies and co-ordinating services was a necessity.
In the early 1990s, Dean began a private counselling practice with her partner Ben Myrick, whom she’d met in UVic’s social work program.
Myrick was also in the midst of a career change from electrical engineering.
Dean said Myrick should have received the award for his support of her pursuits.
“He’s the one that’s dealt with a tired, cranky, grumpy wife or a discouraged wife or a complaining wife,” she said with a laugh.
In the late 1990s, Dean taught courses in the social work program at NVIT and filled in as a department head while the program was without one.
Between her stints as department head and instructor, she worked full-time at NVIT from 1997 to 2008.
In the summers, she took on critical incident debriefing for wildland firefighters.
Today, Dean is somewhat retired.
“About 2013, I said to my husband, ‘I think I’m growing moss on my north side here,’ and so I started looking for places to volunteer,” she said.
She is the board chair for the Merritt Youth and Family Resources Society and has been volunteering with the Merritt and District Hospice Society since last year.
Dean said without plenty of help along the way, she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish all that and more over her career.
“It doesn’t strike me that any individual thing that I’ve done is extraordinary, it’s just that over that 35 years I’ve been involved in the community,” she said.
Dean said what keeps her going in her community work is a belief that everybody has an obligation to give back in whatever capacity they can.
“Even if it’s just once a year, that’s what makes the world go ’round,” she said.
In the tight-knit community of social work, it’s support and self-care that enable the people who do a tough job to keep going, Dean added.
“There is always going to be poverty, trouble and people in distress.
“Every social worker who gets up every morning and goes out and does their job and does that bit extra in the community needs to recognize how important that is,” she said.
