Celebrating Excellence & Dedication

Award Spotlight

We are proud and gratified to recognize the contributions of social workers in our province every year. The award celebration that was once part of our conference every spring is now part of an annual autumn gala, an exciting new tradition for the NSCSW.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Ingrid Waldron

Our inaugural gala will be held virtually in October 2021 to recognize our award winning social workers, as well as our amazing volunteers, committee chairs, and all of the dedicated social workers in Nova Scotia who contribute to our profession and enable us to advance our mission. We also have a brand new award this year, designed to recognize outstanding people in our community who are not social workers themselves but who still act in support of social work advocacy and practice.

The event features a special guest speaker, Dr. Ingrid Waldron, author of There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, which was developed into a Netflix documentary of the same name in 2020. Dr. Waldron’s topic for the evening will be “A Call to Action: how a justice lens in advocacy research can address systemic inequities for marginalized communities and transform the healthcare system.”

CASW National Social Work Month Distinguished Service Award

The Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW) invites member organizations across Canada to offer nominations for this award, which is presented annually during National Social Work Month in March. NSCSW selects members who have made a substantial and unique contribution to the field of social work in the province of Nova Scotia and, therefore, contributed to social work in Canada through: demonstrating such qualities as compassion, leadership, creativity, initiative and high ethical standards, as well as furthering social work in the area of direct practice, program/service development, community organization, social action, research, teaching or writing.

CASW Award: Serena Lewis, MSW, RSW

Serena Lewis has embodied this work as a clinician and advocate for grieving communities across Nova Scotia, following a series of deadly events of April 2020 that began in Portapique, Nova Scotia, and continued across Colchester and Cumberland counties. The needs of these bereaved and traumatized communities were further complicated by public health guidelines during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The nomination letter we received from her mentee spoke passionately of how, while Serena was managing her own grief, she made space for the grief of others in creative ways, and challenged the province to make the grief of survivors a continuing priority.

Serena is a health & social well-being consultant with over twenty years’ experience working in the fields of health and long-term care, education, corrections, and non-profit sectors. A facilitator and international speaker on difficult topics such as grief, dying & death, she is committed to evidence-informed progress for diverse staff and person directed care. Serena aims to promote development of grief literacy and community capacity, and invites the individuals, teams and organizations she works with to participate in compassionate and thought-provoking processes.

She tells us that she too is on her own personal wellness adventure, finding great delight in her love of nature as well as considering her own transitions and transformation in life. Her philosophy is to start with the end in sight, and live and work from there.

David William Connors Memorial Award

David Connors is remembered as devoted to his family, a religious man and a committed professional social worker. His personal and professional priorities throughout his life and career stressed the importance of respect, caring, empathy and dignity towards others. This award was established by the NSASW Council in 1997 in memory of David’s gentle manner and care for others, and is now bestowed annually to a member of NSCSW who works in direct practice especially with youth.

Frontline social workers who are chosen for this award have shown the following attributes: a desire to go beyond the call of duty to meet the needs of clients; respect, caring, empathy and dignity in all aspects of their work; displaying, through direct practice, a basic belief in each human being’s personal worth and ability; and endeavoring to bring about lasting change for those in hardship, particularly youth.

ANDREA WEYMAN-HICKMAN, MSW, RSW

David William Connors Memorial Award: Andrea Weyman-Hickman, MSW, RSW

Andrea Weyman-Hickman is fearless in voicing her concerns when policy does not allow for the dignified treatment of youth. Her ethics are impeccable and her commitment extraordinary; she goes above and beyond in advocating for what she believes is right, and endeavouring to meet the needs of youth and their families. Andrea has demonstrated strong leadership and received the Dr. Mian Award for implementing and promoting the Connect Parenting Program, as part of her long-standing work with Nova Scotia Health.

Andrea completed undergraduate degrees in arts and social work from Dalhousie University. She obtained her MSW from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a leadership specialty and a focus on mental health service delivery. She has also sought out post-graduate training in various therapeutic approaches, and continues to take advantage of learning opportunities to keep herself trauma and grief informed.

Most of Andrea's career has been spent working in Mental Health and Addictions programs. She says that her broad experiences in clinical social work within the provincial system, as well as in private practice, have allowed her to develop a deeper understanding of how these systems work as a whole and a keen interest in how they affect the experiences of people who rely on them.

Andrea tells us that she views her work as a privilege she is honored to participate in. She expresses passion about her profession, as well as a strong belief that therapeutic services (both public and private) can be a vital and empowering experience. Andrea believes it is important to provide interventions that are well-informed by reliable literature, that honour personal experience and choice, and that are viewed with an anti-oppressive lens. She also believes that effective intervention is an art, as well as a science. These beliefs open the door for her and her clients to look together at evidence-based interventions, make informed choices, laugh, get creative, and collaborate in a way that embodies dignity and worth of all people.

Ronald Stratford Memorial Award

Ronald Stratford is remembered for his interest in social services from a holistic perspective, emphasizing prevention and community development. This award was established in 1984 to honour his memory in a manner which reflects his professional commitment to community service. Recipients are selected for their support and advocacy for a preventive or community-based social service program.

Ronald Stratford Memorial Award: Kristyn Anderson, MSW, RSW

Kristyn Anderson has embodied this work as a clinician and advocate for vulnerable youth. For the past eleven years, she has worked as a frontline child and adolescent clinical social worker with IWK youth forensic services. She also holds casual positions in mental health at the Nova Scotia Health Authority, IWK emergency room and run a small private practice specializing in family therapy. She sits on several committees including the Pediatrics Advocacy Committee, Patient Safety Committee, and Education Committee.

As well as being a Registered Social Worker in Nova Scotia, and a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist in Canada, Kristyn is currently a PhD candidate in Health at Dalhousie University. Her research focuses on youth who are involved with provincial child welfare and justice systems, a population known as crossover youth. Kristyn has also founded a community research group that focuses on advocacy for crossover youth, Collectively Exploring Youth Criminalization (CEYC), with representatives from youth court, health, academia and not for profit organizations.

Kristyn tells us that that when she is not working, she is usually cheering her kids on at their various activities, volunteering in her community, or on the ice with her synchronized skating team.

Social Justice Ally Award

The Social Justice Ally Award was created by the Social Justice Committee in 2021 as part of NSCSW’s mandate to serve and protect Nova Scotians by advocating for policies that improve social conditions, challenge injustice and value diversity. This new award is designed to recognize an individual in the public sphere who has used their position or social standing to advocate for the role of social workers in serving the public good, and who advances our ethical mandate to work toward the establishment of equity and social justice.

Social Justice Ally Award: Anna Quon

Anna participated in the Social Justice Committee’s first Big Ideas: Conversations about Mental Health panel discussion as a first voice speaker, thereby ensuring that the work of this committee can centre upon the voices and perspectives of those individuals most affected by this issue. Anna’s lifelong art, writing, speaking and articulate advocacy on the issue of mental health as a social justice issue has helped to transform the public narrative on this pressing public health issue.

As a Halifax poet, novelist, visual artist and filmmaker, Anna likes to make paintings and short animated films of her poems. A middle-aged, mixed- race Mad woman, she facilitates writing and creative and expressive arts workshops for people with mental health histories. Having earned a BA in English literature from Dalhousie University in 1989, Anna has held contracts in the not for profit sector for most of her working life, except for several years as a freelance writer. She has traveled as far as the Czech Republic and Russia to work on her writing. Anna has published two novels, Migration Songs and Low, with Invisible Publishing, and a poetry chapbook, Body Parts, with Gaspereau Press. Her third novel, Where the Silver River Ends, will be released in March 2022.

Anna believes in the need to focus on upholding human rights, the social determinants of health, and on a reduction in the inequitable distribution of wealth and opportunity in and among nations across the globe in order to create a more peaceful healthy, prosperous and unified world for humanity. Inspired by the Baha’i Faith, she believes in the inevitability of such a world— a source of great hope in the face of personal troubles, social hardship and political upheaval.