Lorraine's bio

I was born in Ontario, I lived there all through my childhood. In 1968, I left my parents’ home to study. In 1978, I settled in Quebec, but throughout my life, I have also resided in British Columbia. Many times, I have travelled across Canada. I have spent months in the Northwest territories and have enjoyed being an educator, a sociologist, a psychotherapist as well as being a social worker.

My first studies

Enrolled at Brock University, I completed a four year program in Sociology, with a research project in industry while working as a housemother in a YWCA. Later, I completed a license in Education at Toronto University. There would be a 2nd baccalaureate: in Specialized Education and High School Counselling.

Work that makes sense

I taught high school for thirteen years. From 1978 to 1983, I also operated a summer camp for disadvantaged youths with my husband. When I observed a youngster coming out of his shell who started to be involved in camp management, I derived much satisfaction in knowing he would take this with him. At the camp, nature, small domestic animals, group life and nature activities with invested educators and monitors as well as the excellent vegetables from my garden promoted their good healthy life habits. This was an achievemnt.

My practice

After years of teaching I took a course in Hypnotherapy and a course in Neuro-Linguistic to open the Centre de Santé illimitée in the Eastern Townships. In 2002, the Center welcomed people for an intensive therapy while they rested and benefitted from reflecting and re-writing their life story with a new perspective. My most privileged tool was the use of « life story ».

  

Important transition

While making a transition from the south shore of Montreal to the Eastern Townships, I covered a distance of 375 kilometers in 18 days by walking from the St-Joseph Oratory to St. Anne de Beaupré. This transition made an enduring line between life as I knew it and life as I would come to know it. Transitions are powerful tools when you take on something new.

Back to University

In 2006, I obtained a Master’s in Social Work. The process would make me realize that my actions are often guided by my perception of the injustices in the world. In another life, I would have been an activist for the rights of children and women as well as vulnerable people. 

Writing and traveling

My decision to write books urged me to leave Quebec. From 2006 to 2011, I travelled to Asia, the Middle-East and to Indonesia where I wrote three books.

Work in Nunavik

Returning to Quebec, I worked in Nunavik. My observations of the women’s increased sense of responsibility in regard to their children in the context of domestic violence and their loss of control over their mothering that exacerbate the difficulties they face helped shape my project No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home. Mothers frequently “lose out” in the system because they are blamed for not being able to ensure and sustain safe outcomes for their children. This work marked a turning point in my life, recognizing what life demanded of me from this point on. 

Community Involvement

Having often been a volunteer, I got involved with the Villa Pierrot in late 2014. This organization is a home for single mothers and their children. This gratifying work was about building the self-esteem of children. Appealing to my own qualities of hope, goodness, and social intelligence, responsibility and self-control, this work aims at the positive development of the children. How I would like to import this in Nunavik!

  

In the past, I had been a resource person for newly separated or divorced women. During my stay in British Columbia, I participated in an organisation to reduce poverty.

No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home

It is no surprise that my project No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home is shaped around a trek of 8000 kilometers to offer, with the funds raised, a Safe House for children needing security and protection without having to leave their community and their extended family.

No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home is an initiative to help children in need of loving care, of a protective and stable environment to meet their basic needs.

No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home is a grassroot initiative to help children in need of loving care, of a protective and stable environment to meet their basic needs in a safe house in their own community. Children, mothers and communities are the object of this project No Child Should Have to Take the Long Way Home.  After all, every child is born with the right to have a better chance at a life free from abuse and violence. 

Women and children are inextricably linked together. As their welfare and well-being are shared, all will be done to directly impact mothers as well.

Workshops, meetings with respected elders, any venue that will allow mothers to get the support they need to reinforce their parental capacities will focus on rebuilding community strengths.

Children belong to their families and their communities. The continued connection with mothers, fathers, teachers and other grown-up figures in their community mediate for a sense of well-being for children and all concerned.