Paula Rent hits a button to bring her computer to life and puts on her headset, ready to start another day helping Prince Edward Islanders.
She’s one of six Community Resource Navigators who staff the phones at 211, all of whom have a background focused on caring for others. Over the years, 211’s team of navigators has included social workers, teachers and continuing care workers, just to name a few.
Originally hailing from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Paula joined the 211 team in 2018, having worked previously as a patient care coordinator in a busy medical clinic, an operations support administrator with the Victorian Order of Nurses and an instructor of a Medical Office Administration course.
When asked about the most important skill she brings to her job as a 211 navigator, Paula says it’s “the ability to listen and to empathize with what someone is going through, because they are often sharing information about deeply personal issues which aren’t easy to talk about.”
In June of this year, the United Way of Prince Edward Island, in partnership with the government of P.E.I., collaborated on the launch of 211 services throughout P.E.I. The purpose of 211 is to connect Islanders to the community and government services that can help them with all manner of social needs, whether it is help “in the moment” related to basic needs like food or housing, or a less urgent need related to planning for a loved one’s future care.
The P.E.I. service is modelled after a similar service that was launched in Nova Scotia in early 2013. The motto of 211 is “Help Starts Here,” and over the past seven years, the 211 team has assisted more than 200,000 Nova Scotians in finding services and programs for just about every human need imaginable.
The people who manage the non-profit 211 service for 211 P.E.I. have always strived to offer callers a very different sort of experience. For example, the phones at 211 aren’t automated, rather they are staffed by real people. The wait time to have your call answered is generally much shorter than you might expect (an average of only 31 seconds in 2019) and when you call, you actually speak with someone right away without the frustration of navigating an automated system requiring you to press a series of buttons.
“Our focus is on ensuring every single caller, regardless of their need or situation, receives highly personalized help that is delivered in a way that is thoughtful, caring, and compassionate,” says James Robertson, Director of Service Delivery. “Finding the right people with the skills and personality to do that, call after call, day-in-day-out, certainly isn’t easy, but according to all of the feedback we’ve received from people who have called 211, it has really been those first impressions over the phone that have earned us our reputation for exceptional service quality when it comes to helping people in need.”
Paula says the thing she loves most about the job also makes it the most challenging.
“Every call is different, and I love to be right in the thick of a situation that forces me to adapt on the fly,” she says. “Even though I’ve answered thousands of calls as a 211 navigator, there are still lots of days when a caller presents me with a situation or a particular need I’ve never seen before. Fortunately, we have excellent people backing us up, dedicated to keeping 211’s province-wide database of community resources current and they are always adding new resources.”
While being interviewed, Paula said she was greatly honoured to have been chosen as the focus of this article.
“I want more people to be aware of the 211 service and this is an opportunity for me to help make that happen. I just know that there are so many more people out there whom we could help, and hopefully, this story will encourage them to reach out.”
P.E.I.’s 211 service is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For more information or to find a service for yourself or someone else, call or visit pe.211.ca.
