Staff Spotlight
Cayce Laviolette, Social Worker
Primary care is a relatively new area of practice for social workers in B.C. Cayce tells us that he loves being able to work with such a broad group of patients in a way that is 100% client-centered. “My job is to support patients with whatever their needs are,” he says.
Today we are pleased to feature Cayce Laviolette, a social worker with Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) on the Sunshine Coast Primary Care Network (PCN) team.
Cayce has been working in primary care for the last seven years and was extremely excited when VCH created a new Social Worker position on the Sunshine Coast where he already resides. “I chair the provincial social work primary care committee and worked with the Sunshine Coast Division of Family Practice for four years both as a social worker and as a project manager, supporting physicians in their plan to develop a Primary Care Network,” he tells us.
“I feel incredibly lucky to work alongside such skilled and engaged physicians,” says Cayce. “For me, these exciting moments come every day when the doctors and I take a collaborative approach to help our patients.”
He gave us an example of an inspirational moment that took place recently. “A doctor came into my office at the clinic and asked how we can better help a young mother and her newborn be successful in the face of poverty and the housing crisis,” he says. “The case is tragic and speaks to the growing inequality in society, but how fortunate that this young other has such a caring and activist in her physician.”
Cayce tells us that he feels very supported in this role at VCH. “There has been a huge commitment on the part of VCH to ensure the PCN grows and develops in a sustainable way. Over the last year, I have met with a team consisting of my manager, practice lead, physician lead, and other oversight groups to review the success of this social worker position in detail. We call it a ‘Living Lab’ model with the goal to evaluate as we move forward, constantly tweaking program guidelines in response to what we learn.”
At VCH, our values are We Care for Everyone, We Are Always Learning and We Strive for Better Results. For Cayce, he feels that PCNs are able to embody these values in a new way. “Because my team supports patients across their health journeys, we can help people before they require acute or specialized community care,” he says. “We are also not limited by patient diagnosis. We will see anyone for any reason, as long as they are requesting the support of a social worker.”
He recognizes that it is all a work in progress. “We are ironing out the complexities of a new team, a new way of working, and new relationships take considerable dialogue and humility. We owe many of our achievements to the wisdom of other PCNs across the province. We have learned from their challenges and victories and my guess is that other teams will learn from ours.”
Cayce shared the exciting news that their team has submitted their Service Plan to the Ministry of Health detailing their hopes and plans to grow the team over the next three years.
We want to send a big congratulations to Cayce, who recently got married! He and his wife had to wait two years for the pandemic restrictions to lift to have the wedding they wanted, and he tells us it was worth the wait!
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