Husnija, Correctional Manager

I think when you start to become complacent is when you lose that ability to respond at any moment's notice. I'm always aware of my surroundings, but I'm also very comfortable walking these breezeways by myself, the units. I talk to inmates, interact with them normally, but I think you have to be aware of where you are and the people you're around.

Hi, my name is Husnija and I'm a Correctional Manager at Drumheller Institution.

It's really dealing with every situation that arises within the institution. So, I work day shifts, evening shifts, night shifts. So working with officers, ensuring that they are equipped to fulfill their duties. If they need assistance, we're there for them, guidance, and the same goes for inmates. So, if inmates are having issues during their day, they come to us. So we're there to fix and resolve whatever issues they have, whether it's “I'm not getting along with other inmates on the unit,” “I'm not feeling safe.” “I feel like self-harming.” Or if there's emergencies, we're those people that are there to help them.

Our institution is quite active. We have incidents almost on a daily basis. A lot of it is minor altercations between inmates. Sometimes they don't require outside hospital intervention, but every so often we do have major assaults, group assaults.

So when you get a call, you don't know what you're responding to. When your body goes into that fight or flight, you are just going. I arrive and I'm like, "Okay, what do I need to do for the inmate right in this moment? What do I need the officers to help me do? What can we

do as a team?" It's just your focused on that one thing.

I think the biggest challenge is just the stress that comes along with this job. We respond to a lot of traumatic events. It really does take a toll on you physically, emotionally,

psychologically.

As a manager and as a human, I think it's vital for me to be in that leadership role and to

prioritize the mental well-being of officers 100%. I want to make sure that they're taken care of. I want to make sure that they're confident in their response.

I love my job and I think the majority of that is my coworkers. I work with an amazing team at Drumheller. The officers are awesome. The management is great. I love that aspect and I like interacting with inmates. I mean, every inmate has a different walk of life, so every interaction is different. I like knowing that I possibly have made a difference in someone's life at some point. So that's really nice.