Celebrating Exceptional Nova Scotia Social Workers

At our annual conference we recognize the contributions of social workers in our province. Though the 2020 conference was cancelled, we are still proud to offer congratulations and thanks to all of our annual award recipients.

David William Connors Memorial Award

WENDY GREEN | MSW, RSW

For three decades, Wendy has practised exemplary trauma informed social work, and provided outstanding treatment for children and families in Nova Scotia. She has tirelessly worked with and advocated for many of our most vulnerable children and families.

Wendy Green

Wendy has also been integral in setting the stage and assisting in the review and rebuilding of processes that include the child’s voice within our justice system. She also goes above and beyond for the clients she serves. She continues to passionately work with a family-centred lens, both with the IWK and as a private practitioner.

Her nominator, Coleen Flynn, tells us that Wendy leads by example within our profession by mentoring, providing consultation, offering sessional instruction at Dalhousie University, and sharing her experience and knowledge within our social work community.

Ron Stratford Memorial Award

ANGELA PEH

Angela Peh

Kristyn Anderson nominated Angela for this award as an example of how social workers are leaders in their communities and initiate change with their community. They met when Angela was completing her MSW placement at Hants Community Hospital, in mental health. After a successful career in child welfare, Angela had returned to school as a mature student, ready to learn and ready to do more for the clients she worked with.

Over the past several years, joining with parents, coaches and managers, Angela has supported the implementation of a grassroots mental health initiative within a HRM minor hockey league. She has co-created information sessions for coaches, players, managers and parents around the importance of mental health in hockey, and brought in resources for people on teams to know where to go if there are concerns or crises with a player’s mental health. She has found community leaders to speak to the community about this topic, and made mental health a priority within the organization.

While being a busy parent and a full time clinician in mental health, Angela has made time to find and collaborate with like-minded people in her community, to support the well-being of children involved in organized sports, and ultimately to be a force for positive change.

Ken Belanger Memorial Award

JAQI ALLAN

Jaqi Allan

Jaqi was nominated by Norma Jean Profitt, who describes Jaqi as a social worker with an explicit and unfailing commitment to pursuing social justice by challenging oppression and injustice in its myriad forms. Jaqi offers alternatives for a better world. She emulates the qualities of Ken Belanger through the clarity and tenacity with which she persistently addresses these social justice realities. She exhibits great integrity and stellar social ethics, extending ethics beyond those involved in the social worker-client dyadic relationship.

Members of queer and trans communities know that Jaqi will go above and beyond to serve LGBT+ people with caring, compassion, and social responsibility, particularly youth. She has been a pioneer in offering services to the LGBT+ population; she completed assessments for hormone therapy for transgender persons long before the Nova Scotia Health Authority formalized this service.

Jaqi has also shown her commitment to social justice through academic work, for example, contributing as co-author to several chapters in a forthcoming book entitled Counseling Ethics from the Margins: The Lived Experiences of Practitioners. She has been an active union member for many years, seeking to uphold the rights of workers in fair and just ways.

Jaqi Allan’s perseverance and dedication meet all requirements of this prestigious award.