Long before she became a clinician, educator, or advisor, Catherine Chan learned what it meant to care for others by sitting quietly with people who felt unseen. At 12 years old, she volunteered in an old-age home, spending time with residents who wanted company as much as assistance. The experience stayed with her, shaping how she understands care, dignity, and connection: less as something delivered, and more as something shared.

"I can still visualize the grandmas and grandpas looking at me with love," she recalls, "with a yearning for attention, for concrete help, but also a yearning to be heard."

Decades later, that early experience continues to shape Catherine’s approach to social work. Across more than 40 years of practice (as a clinician, educator, leader, and advisor), she has remained grounded in the belief that meaningful support begins with presence.

Much of Catherine’s work has focused on supporting individuals and families through death, dying, and grief. These are areas that many social workers encounter across practice settings, yet often feel unprepared to navigate. For Catherine, the challenge is not only about skill or knowledge, but about how social workers show up in moments of profound vulnerability.

"I believe that the best gift that we can give to our clients is the gift of presence," she says.

This perspective has guided her clinical work, her teaching, and her long-standing collaboration with OASW’s Professional Development team. Through this work, Catherine has helped shape courses on culturally responsive grief counselling, palliative care, and anti-Asian racism…bringing attention to the ways culture, family, migration, and racism influence experiences of illness and loss.

Catherine’s teaching emphasizes that grief is never experienced in a vacuum. Cultural values shape how loss is understood, expressed, and supported, while systemic racism can create additional barriers to care at the very moments when people are most vulnerable. By grounding professional development in lived experience and cultural context, her work has helped social workers reflect more deeply on their practice and better support the communities they serve.

Alongside her practice and teaching, Catherine has also contributed to the profession through advisory and equity-focused work with OASW. She describes her involvement in terms of connection — a space where learning, accountability, and shared responsibility come together. For Catherine, OASW is a place of encouragement and professional grounding, one that feels less like an institution and more like coming home.

Reflecting on her career, Catherine remembers being cautioned early on about the emotional toll of social work. Well-meaning colleagues warned her about burnout, about having “only so much love to give.” She listened, reflected and chose to continue.

"Here I am after 40 years," she says, "and I’m still around. I take pride in being a social worker, and I take pride in supporting the next generation."

For Catherine, longevity in the profession has depended on care for oneself and care for colleagues.

"We need to take care of ourselves as social workers, and we need to take care of each other," she reflects. "There is always a seat at the table when our hearts are in the right place and when we continue to do our work carefully, with passion and hope."

As Social Work Week invites reflection on the impact of the profession, Catherine Chan’s story is a reminder that social work is sustained not only by policy, frameworks, or interventions, but by presence, humility, and hope. Her career reflects what is possible when care is practiced with intention: over time, across communities, and through the most difficult moments of life.