Helping people in Tillsonburg
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Tillsonburg resident Phil Gravelle is no stranger to those in need.
The employment retention consultant with the Livingston Centre has been in the business of helping people for many years.
“I’ve been doing this most of my life,” said Gravelle. “I’ve been helping people it seems like forever but the academic training towards it began with Fanshawe in 2007.”
Gravelle, a registered social services worker, has done everything over the years including mentoring and counseling people, street outreach in Toronto, helping people deal with life’s changes and challenges as well as those facing crises.
“People are in a position because of circumstance or choice – I’ve worked with both,” he said. “I have to accept choice and I can help with circumstance, but I can help with choice too just by being the mentor, by being there for them.”
Now Gravelle is expanding that role in his position as employment retention consultant in Tillsonburg, beginning just over a year ago in January 2012 at the Livingston Centre.
“My focus is that people get a job - I’m going to ensure they keep it,” said Gravelle. “That includes environment, that includes the workplace that includes personal life and life matters.”
As a member of the Social Planning Council of Oxford and the Tillsonburg Resource Network, Gravelle works with a variety of people from all walks of life and is often referred to people needing assistance by the Salvation Army, Employment Services, and even the Ontario Provincial Police.
In order for Gravelle to assist people, they must be connected with Ontario Employment Services. His goal is to assist people in various areas with a number of resources, and such areas in life can often be a challenge for many people when securing employment.
Gravelle identified communication, housing, transportation, and food security as the biggest obstacles many people deal with on a daily basis.
For example, many times Gravelle noted, people can find work but lack the means to get to and from their place of employment. He is now part of a working group addressing the need for transportation in and around Tillsonburg, and has recently introduced a couple of new initiatives involving bikes and taxi cabs.
“The issue of public transportation has been addressed,” said Gravelle. “We’re not talking busses but we are talking bus stops. I’ve consulted with the taxi company owners and it sounds good that there is something workable,” he said of the transportation initiative.
Bikes are also an important means of transportation.
“I’m asking the community to think about it. If there’s an old bike around the house – mountain bike preferably, even in disrepair, I will go pick it up and put it in our inventory so that we have this ongoing for long term,” said Gravelle. “Now being short of bikes, we still have the option of cost-sharing, getting as many stakeholders as possible to keep costs down for each person, to maybe buying a new bike,” he explained.
“It’s something that will work that will support that person getting to work.”
No matter their background, where they’re from or the hand life has dealt them, Gravelle makes a point of not judging people but accepting them and their situation. He is always there to assist in any way he can, and does his best to help people establish themselves on the right path in life.
“Eyes on, feet on the ground,” Gravelle said of a motto he uses. “The follow through and follow-up with people is probably the most expensive aspect of care – it’s like aftercare. It’s like person centered care and that’s what that individual is going to get from me.”
If anyone in Tillsonburg or surrounding communities has an old or used mountain bike they want to get rid of, Gravelle encourages those wishing to donate to the transportation initiative, to call him at (519) 842-9000.