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Flowering of compassion

Long-time social workers find “standard practice” opens a new world for Ukraine’s fledgling social services system

by Melanie Zuercher

Although she was born and raised in Canada, Florence Hooge came to Bethel College in 1952 as a legacy student. Her mother, Gertrude Harms, took teachers’ training at Bethel in the 1920s – Gertrude’s father, Rev. G.N. Harms, was a Bethel board member and staunch supporter of Mennonite higher education. On her father’s (Jake Hooge) side, Florence’s aunts had gone to Bethel.

At CMBC, Florence had met a young man named Otto Driedger ’53, who also went to Bethel. While Florence finished her degree there, Otto became Bethel’s first student in the exchange program with the Bergische Universität in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1953-54. After Florence graduated in 1954, the couple married and returned to Canada, where both soon earned master’s degrees in social work at McGill University in Montreal, had two daughters (Joan and Karen) and went on to long and varied careers in social work in Saskatchewan – and beyond.

Context: What kind of work have you done in your social work career?

Florence Driedger: I started out in child welfare and moved into child protective services. Otto was doing rural social work. He then became director for the Swift Current [Sask.] region and eventually was promoted, first to be director of child welfare and then to carry the corrections, youth and aging portfolios for the province. I got into staff training and development in the central office and I worked at getting a school of social work for the province established at the University of Regina [Sask.].

In those days, it was still hard for women to advance [in the profession]. I was kind of stuck, so I went into contract work. I worked for Mennonite Church Canada for two years, facilitating the interaction of Mennonites with aboriginal people in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. There was a nonprofit family services agency in Regina that was looking for a director and asked me to be the interim. Then the board asked me to take the director position permanently. I said I couldn’t because I was going to accompany Otto on a six-month trip overseas, but they still wanted me to apply. I ended up being the director of the Family Service Bureau for 12 years. After I retired from that, I became the field practicum coordinator for the human justice program, allied to the social work department at the University of Regina.

Context: When did you start working overseas?

FD: In 1985, we spent three months doing an analysis of the social needs of the Paraguayan Mennonite community. Then we went back every year for five years to follow up. The international work was getting into our blood.

Otto’s mother was born in Ukraine and he was always fascinated with Russian literature. In 1989, Mennonite Mental Health Services, a part of Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), arranged an exchange. A number of mental health professionals – mostly psychiatrists and psychologists with some social workers and chaplains – agreed to go to Ukraine and also to pay for someone to come back to [learn about what was done in] North America. I said, “Otto, you have to go.”

Context: So how did you get into doing social work in other countries?

FD: Otto went to Ukraine, and people came [to Canada] from the university in Odessa. They were interested in community based mental health services. It was frustrating in Ukraine because people would go into mental hospitals and be treated and then get sent back into the community with no support or other treatment services. Those kinds of community based services and volunteer work had been illegal under Communism – there was no acknowledgment of the needs because it was “a perfect society.”

One of the psychiatrists from Odessa, Boris Khersonski, was referred to Otto and the model in Saskatchewan, which was more community based and developmental in nature. Otto and I went to Odessa in September 1991, two weeks after the coup [when the central committee tried to oust Gorbachev]. We led workshops, and then they wanted us to come back in November to a conference on youth services in Kiev, so we did.

Boris started a college – Socium – in Odessa that taught social work, psychology and Bible. He was from Jewish background and became a Christian in the ’70s. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he realized that there was no value base left and he said, “We need to teach our people the Judeo-Christian values that are the basis for human service work.” He wanted us to teach [a class in basic principles of social work], because he said, “Otto and Florence are demonstrating in their lives what it means to be Christian.”

When we began, there was open enrollment and we had about 40 students. Anyone could come [without prerequisites]. Boris said, “It will go down to about 20,” but we ended up with 70! We interviewed students to ask them why they came, and they said, “Because you cared. So many [of our professors] who teach in the university don’t care.” What we considered a normal attitude and normal behavior [toward our students] was new to them.

Context: So how did you expand beyond Odessa?

FD: Soon after we started going to Odessa, we were invited to Kiev to teach restorative justice. That happened through our connection with Roman Koval. He began working in mediation in Odessa. Then he moved to Kiev, where he founded the Ukrainian Center for Common Ground, which has worked to set up a mediation center and do peer mediation in schools. UCCG has gotten the attention of the justice system in Ukraine and has led to work on reforming juvenile justice. We have been going back and forth to Kiev since the late 1990s.

Zaporozhye is an industrial city that was closed during the Communist era. While Odessa had started some human service agencies in the ’80s, Zaporozhye had no social service agencies at all. Lucy Romanenkova at Zaporozhye National University wanted to have field placements [for social work students] and there was nowhere for them to go. She wanted to show how the psychiatric hospital, the cancer hospital and the juvenile justice system could benefit from social work practices.

Lucy would come to Canada and be blown away by what was happening [in social work practice] but back in Zaporozhye, people didn’t believe what she [described]. Earlier, we had begun to have exchanges in which we brought colleagues to and from Ukraine. In the 20 years we have been going to Ukraine, about 150 people have been involved. These exchanges have been for skill building and vision building.

Finally, we got the rector of Zaporozhye National University to come. He is a mathematician and he saw social work as “the fluffy stuff,” but after that, he went back to the university and said to Lucy, “You must develop a family service agency.” In Ukraine, there were people providing social services who had no background or training in social work. They needed to learn how to relate to people more positively – they needed training in communication and other key skills.

In 2004, Lucy began working to start a center, which began functioning in 2006. They named it Family Service and Community Education Centre, or “Florence,” because they said, “It’s like a flower, opening up and blossoming, and that’s what you’re doing for us.” The Florence Centre provides psychological, social, pedagogical, educational and psychiatric support to families and it also works with city and regional social work agencies and public organizations.

Context: What motivated you to get involved in this kind of work?

FD: I’ve had an international interest since I was a tiny kid. Some of my mother’s relatives were missionaries in China and Japan. We had many missionaries visiting in our home. I also have this rooting in the Mennonite community and in Mennonite history. It’s a history well beyond Canada. Also having relatives beyond Canada gave us a broader view. Otto had a similar upbringing.

I had the example of my parents caring for others and of their teamwork. I saw their concern for the community – those beyond just our family, and not just Mennonites. The world wasn’t defined only by the local community.