Featured Member: Chantal Arsenault

Chantal Arsenault, a nurse practitioner working at Horizon Health in New Brunswick, is also a student in the N4 - Saint-Paul University online program. Early in her career, Chantal rarely interacted with newcomers to Canada as the majority of the patients she dealt with were white anglophones or francophones who had lived in New Brunswick for most of their lives. In 2015, upon returning from maternity leave, Chantal learned the physician she had worked with had retired to Quebec, leaving Chantal to manage a developing situation: caring for a large influx of Syrian refugees that had arrived with complex issues, language barriers and trauma. There were no immediate resources in place to provide these newcomers with the socioculturally responsive care that they needed. Their arrival added to the challenges on emergency departments who were under existing strain.

A temporary clinic was created to take care of all the newcomers with Chantal suddenly immersed in a new and more complex role. She had to build everything from scratch, lacking both resources and connections. Eventually Chantal fell into the role of a local expert on handling newcomers due to her experience with these newcomers. Other healthcare professionals approached Chantal asking for advice. The clinic, which was originally supposed to be temporary, has evolved into an essential centre for newcomer navigation.

There were several things Chantal liked about the N4-SPU program. Being able to make connections with others working in the field of newcomer navigation revealed that many experienced similar challenges, regardless of location, and they also rely on each other for support by pooling their resources and working together to find solutions to shared problems that confront many newcomers across Canada. There was also a sense of validation, knowing that many other healthcare, settlement and social services professionals dealing with refugees were facing the same challenges that Chantal and her patients were experiencing.

An important lesson the program taught Chantal was that she cannot multitask effectively at her job, and it was best if she allowed herself to focus at the task at hand. As she said, “I value accessibility, I want to be as accessible to as many as I want. But this course made me realize that if I’m accessible all the time, I’m providing access to one but denying access to another. I’m better at saying: I’m with so and so, hold on, I’m being interrupted can I call you back in a second’. Now, I realize that I cannot, and should not do both at the same time because it prevents me from being an effective listener, both to my patients and my colleagues.”

As someone in such high demand, both due to her experience and because of a lack of resources, learning that she simply cannot do everything for everyone at once was a valuable revelation. Chantal also emphasized that the course and the interactions with colleagues from different sectors, have highlighted the value of having a newcomer navigation program and a network where newcomer serving professionals can share resources and support so that they can better serve their patients.