'Unlike any other profession': Constables gather for Women in First Nation Policing Forum

Alana Morrison remembers well the beginning of her career in policing.

Morrison, the sexual assault coordinator with the Nishnawbe Aski Police Service (NAPS), said the experience was a lonely one.

"When I started my first rotation, I was in [the] small community of Cat Lake, 350 people," Morrison told CBC Thunder Bay's Superior Morning. "I left my two children at home, and I flew into this community."

"I felt so alone," she said. "And I know these women are now up in the north, and they're younger and they're more educated, and it's important to me that they don't feel isolated and alone."

So Morrison launched the Women in First Nation Policing Forum, the first of which was held recently in Thunder Bay, and brought together the women officers of NAPS.

"Bringing them together here in Thunder Bay ... was so important because they can put faces to names on the phone list," Morrison said. "We wanted them all to come together and get to know each other."

The need for the forum also speaks to the changing workforce within NAPS, she said.

"There are 27 of us brave females working the north now," Morrison said, adding, when she started, "there were seven of us, at best."

And they face unique challenges, Morrison said.

"It is unlike any other profession where a woman would get up and go to work, and come home after work," she said. "In these circumstances, these ladies, they, so bravely, take their gear and their food, and they fly into an isolated community, where they're there for 16 days at a time."

"They're on-call 24/7," Morrison said. "These detachments that they work in were not meant for females. So we don't have change rooms made for females, we don't have washrooms for females, we don't have bunks that are for female usage."

The job itself can be very difficult, as well, Morrison said.

"I remember going to my first call and having absolutely no spit in my mouth," Morrison said. "I was terrified."

"And then you're working with other men, and sometimes you can talk to them and you'll meet the partner ... that you can relate to," she said. "Other times ... you can't really talk about those feelings."

Morrison said the forum was very helpful in building a peer support network among attendees. There are already plans for more training for the the women officers of NAPS, and to hold another forum next year.

"It is, in part, too, to have retention," she said. "We want to keep these ladies in, we want to keep them happy."