I'll tell you about my personal journey. First of all, I studied in this field. My bachelor's degree is in criminology, my master's degree is in social work, and my doctorate is in the sociology of health.
I worked in halfway houses while I was doing my bachelor's and master's degrees. Then I did a master's internship at the Correctional Service of Canada, at the Hull sector office, here, as a community parole officer.
Afterwards, I continued my career in the Canadian Armed Forces as a health services officer. I was deployed to Afghanistan, and I was in Germany for four years. During that time, I had to do a lot of psychosocial assessments, but no risk assessments.
When I left the Canadian Armed Forces in 2014, I applied through the board's appointment process. I went through all the steps, was put on the appointment list and was selected. Like the others, I took an initial five-week training course: two weeks in Ottawa and three weeks in Montreal.
During my first year, I was always paired with an experienced board member, mainly with Pierre Cadieux, who had some 20 years of experience at the board. He is an excellent board member. He taught me the ins and outs of the job; he taught me how to write quality decisions and how to get quality information when assessing risk during hearings or voting on cases. I was very well coached, especially during my first year.