"We hold human lives in our hands."

In this episode of The Unsafe Social Worker, I speak with "Amy," a Nova Scotia registered nurse whose identity is protected because she fears repercussions from her employer.

Drawing on a nursing career that began in 2000, Amy shares her perspective on why experienced nurses leave bedside care, how mentorship is lost, and what happens when colleagues have to beg each other for help. She describes workplace violence, a safety-reporting call returned 48 hours later, and the emotional weight that follows nurses home.

"Instead of being a mom, I was a decompressing nurse."

We discuss the gap between safety policies and meaningful protection—and why supporting nurses means more than handing them a phone number when they're already struggling.

"You do your call, you drop your patient off, you go to the next call."

But what happens to everything you carry between those calls?

In this episode of The Unsafe Social Worker, I sit down with Adam Smith, who spent 17 years as a paramedic, to talk about the work he loved and the toll that helped him recognize it was time to leave.

With humour and honesty, Adam shares calls that stayed with him, the exhaustion that followed him home, and a workplace culture where opening up wasn't always accepted. He also recalls colleagues responding to a friend's suicide, only to be asked: "Hey guys, can you come back to work tomorrow?"

We discuss meaningful support, the limits of resilience, and why caring for patients must include caring for the people who show up to help them.

"By the second year in, I knew that I needed to find an out."

In this episode of The Unsafe Social Worker, I sit down with Bree, a social worker with 18 years of experience who spent five years in child welfare before moving into private practice.

Bree reflects on overwhelming caseloads, barriers to getting families the services they needed, and the pressure to keep working when her own capacity was stretched. She shares how the job followed her home through irritability, disrupted sleep, and an ongoing need to unload.

"You are trained to do assessments, to do risk assessments."

But who assesses the impact on the worker?

We discuss threats during home visits, the normalization of trauma, and what meaningful support could look like—from checking workers' capacity to providing accessible, ongoing therapy.