SACHA’s Welcomes Amy!

Amy is join­ing SACHA’s staff after becom­ing a Sup­port Line vol­un­teer in 2014. Amy has over ten years hus­tling in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and comes back to SACHA after work­ing as Cen­tre de san­té com­mu­nau­taire Hamilton/Niagara’s Tran­si­tion Hous­ing Sup­port Worker.

What is your secret skill?
My secret skill is that I’m real­ly good at Sudoku.

What stood out for you your first week at SACHA as a coun­sel­lor?
The thing that most stood out to me my first week at SACHA was how wel­com­ing the staff were. How con­sid­er­ate it was and con­tin­ues to be in terms of sup­port. SACHA doesn’t just have an anti-racis­m/an­ti-oppres­sion pol­i­cy, but enforces it.

What do you want some­one who’s call­ing or com­ing to SACHA for the first time to know?
De-mys­ti­fy­ing coun­selling is quite chal­leng­ing as many peo­ple have had oppres­sive expe­ri­ences, includ­ing myself. It’s impor­tant to acknowl­edge people’s expe­ri­ences and let them set their own coun­selling goals. Coun­selling takes a lot of work not just inside the ses­sion but out­side as well. Coun­selling can look very dif­fer­ent from one per­son to the next and it’s impor­tant to know that just because one coun­sel­lor isn’t a good fit doesn’t mean that anoth­er will not be.

What’s one thing you do to take care?
If I’m feel­ing a lit­tle down some­thing I like to google is unlike­ly ani­mals cuddling.