Announcing our 2026 Local Award Winners!

Donna Daae is a Registered Social Worker in Northern Ontario whose work bridges frontline clinical excellence, research-informed advocacy, and systems leadership. As a core member of an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team at Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA), she delivers intensive, community-based mental health and addictions support to individuals living with serious and persistent mental illness. Through crisis intervention, medication management, housing stabilization, hospital diversion, and long-term recovery planning, Donna practices relational, consistent, and evidence-informed care that reduces barriers and restores dignity.

Her leadership extends beyond direct service. Donna works collaboratively with psychiatry, nursing, peer support, housing providers, Indigenous services, and community agencies to strengthen integrated responses to mental health and addiction challenges. She believes sustainable recovery is built through coordinated systems, strong partnerships, and accountability to community needs.
With strong personal family connections to First Nations communities, Donna brings cultural humility and a critical understanding of colonization, intergenerational trauma, and systemic inequities into her practice and advocacy. She actively advances culturally safe approaches that honour Indigenous identity and self-determination within care systems.

Donna is also a bold advocate for LGBTQ2S+ inclusion and healthcare equity, particularly in rural and northern communities. Her work integrates research, education, and practice to challenge stigma and promote identity-safe environments. In 2025, she was honoured with the Grant Halle Lambda Foundation Award in recognition of her leadership in advancing LGBTQ2S+ acceptance, advocacy, and research.

Currently completing her Master of Social Work, with the University of Waterloo. Donna is committed to driving policy reform and equity-focused system transformation. She believes social work is both a privilege and a responsibility, to lead courageously, practice compassionately, and build communities where dignity and belonging are not aspirations, but realities.

Marci Gray is the Founder and Lead Consultant of Gray Matter Health, a counselling and consulting firm based in Brampton, Ontario. She leads a diverse and compassionate team that provides exceptional mental wellness services in-person and virtually throughout the province. Beyond her clinical practice, Marci is a trusted workplace mental health consultant, partnering with organizations to promote employee mental health, reduce burnout, and create psychologically safe, inclusive environments. Her consulting work includes delivering corporate training, leadership development sessions, and mental wellness programming tailored to meet the needs of today’s evolving workforce.

Marci is also a lecturer at the University of Toronto and a dedicated scholar. Her PhD research explores psychological health for racialized workers in the workplace, reinforcing her mission to bridge clinical expertise with organizational change.
Last year, her work in mental health advocacy and business leadership earned her two prestigious awards, celebrating her impact in both clinical and corporate spheres. Marci is also a regular media expert, appearing on platforms like CTV, Citytv, and Global News, where she speaks on mental wellness, racial equity, and workplace mental health.

Shelley Heavens, RSW, is an integrative psychotherapist with over 30 years of experience supporting individuals and communities across Northwestern Ontario. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Social Work and is a Certified Trauma Professional (CTP) and Certified Psychosocial Rehabilitation Recovery Practitioner (CPRRP). Shelley is EMDR-trained and is currently working toward her C.Hyp designation in clinical hypnotherapy. Her work is grounded in trauma-informed care that honours the connection between mind, body, and spirit.

Shelley’s integrative approach blends evidence-based and holistic therapies to support trauma recovery and emotional well-being. She helps individuals build resilience and reconnect with their strengths and offers Eco Walk-and-Talk Therapy, integrating movement and connection with nature as part of the healing process.

In addition to her clinical work, Shelley has demonstrated longstanding leadership and commitment to community development. She has served on multiple non-profit boards and currently sits as an appointed member of the Police Services Board.
A significant accomplishment in Shelley’s community work has been her leadership in the development of a 50-unit affordable housing project in Marathon, helping create safe and stable homes for individuals and families.
Based in Marathon, Ontario, Shelley provides virtual and in-person therapy across the province and serves rural and northern communities, including neighbouring Indigenous communities. She is committed to providing inclusive and culturally safe care that respects individuals and communities.

Sydney Sheppard, MSW, RSW, is a Registered Social Worker and Psychotherapist working within public sector community mental health. She holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Memorial University of Newfoundland and a Master of Social Work (Advanced Standing: Mental Health and Health) from the University of Toronto. Her practice reflects a sustained commitment to the field of traumatic stress and is informed by advanced training in clinical traumatology, interpersonal neurobiology, and ongoing professional learning within psychotraumatology.

Sydney is a clinician with the Crisis Team at Mental Health Services of Renfrew County, where she provides frontline counselling and psychotherapy to individuals experiencing acute psychological distress, complex trauma, and high-risk presentations. Her work emphasizes safety, attunement, and clinical presence, with a focus on meeting people with care and dignity at moments when access to steady, responsive support is most critical.

In addition to direct practice, Sydney advances trauma-responsive care at a systems level through the development of clinical protocols, pathways, and client-focused programming, alongside formal consultation and education for frontline workers, clinicians, and interdisciplinary teams across the county. Her portfolio includes psychotherapy initiatives, DBT skills training, equine-assisted learning, and the creation of written clinical resources, including the Atlas of Psychotraumatology.

Sydney’s work reflects a commitment to strengthening community capacity by supporting both individuals’ accessing services and the professionals who serve them. She approaches knowledge mobilization as a relational and embodied process that integrates scientific evidence with lived experience and prioritizes safety, dignity, and human connection within high-acuity systems.

Rashida Collins is based in Ottawa, practicing anti-colonial social work on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinabek people with gratitude and humility. She is a Queer Black Scotian woman of Mi'kmaq ancestry and a Cherokee descendant of the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.

Rashida currently practices as a Clinical Social Worker with The Ottawa Hospital, working across specialized programs including the Sexual Assault and Partner Abuse Care Program (SAPACP). She also provides psychotherapy in private practice, integrating culturally safe, spiritually grounded, trauma-informed, strengths-based, and whole-person approaches. She supports refugee claimants throughout their journeys, providing psychotherapy and clinical assessments for those fleeing human rights oppression.

Rashida has held leadership and advocacy roles nationally and locally, including with the Assembly of First Nations, the Canadian Labour Congress, the Native Women’s Association of Canada, and the United Nations Volunteers. She also worked frontline at the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, Harmony House, and the Ottawa Community Immigrant Services Organization.

With experience spanning community, advocacy, and clinical spaces in Ottawa, Rashida has dedicated her social work practice to supporting individuals living and working within systemic barriers. She believes every person deserves to feel valued and connected, and that within all of us lies the capacity for awareness, change, and healing. Her lifelong manifestation is for all women and girls to live in a world free of violence, and she counts her greatest achievement as raising two young men to be feminists. Rashida dreams boldly of social transformation, freedom for all enslaved and oppressed people, and global equity.

After starting his career as a frontline social services worker in downtown Toronto, Peter Trainor has been working in child, youth, and family mental health since 2013 in community agency and hospital settings.

He works primarily as a family therapist, helping parents and caregivers to better understand and support their children, using a trauma and attachment-informed approach.

Throughout his career, he has worked to bring that same trauma and attachment-informed perspective to colleagues, to programs, and to organizations, with the goal of helping to move the mental health system from one that asks clients "What's wrong with you?" to one that asks "What happened to you?".

"I am deeply passionate about Social Work and look forward to networking, and organizing events for members in our area both in English and French.

A little bit about me: I graduated from Carleton’s School of Social Work in 1998 (BSW) then completed my MSW at McGill (2006). I started in Children’s Mental Health, then Family Health Team, and most recently as a Social Worker in private practice since 2011. From 2010 to 2020 I taught as sessional professor and followed students in placements as part of Laurentian University’s Bachelor of Social Work program.

I have had a long commitment to the OASW. I served for a number of years as a board member when the local association was known as Huronia Highlands. In that role, I helped organize and deliver professional development trainings in the Simcoe county area.
Born and raised in Penetanguishene. I currently live and work in Barrie."

Dr. Narine Dat Sookram is an advanced generalist who always had the passion for social work and has followed his heart and quit his full-time permanent role as an internal auditor after ten years to pursue his dream of becoming a social worker.

That dream became a reality after Dr. Sookram started from scratch by completing an Ontario College Diploma in the social service worker program and then moved on to complete a Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) at the University of Manitoba, a Master of Social Work (MSW) at Brescia University, and a Doctor of Social Work (DSW) at Capella University, where his doctoral capstone was on finding best practices for inclusive hiring in social service agencies.

Dr. Sookram is also certified in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) and has over ten years of experience working with a varied population facing a variety of difficulties. Over the years, in addition to many frontline roles, including a job developer and a therapist, Dr. Sookram has held many leadership positions in a variety of settings, such as addiction, mental health, and the shelter system. Dr. Sookram, who is a law school candidate, is naturally gifted in representing the vulnerable population as it relates to human rights and inclusive hiring and has been successful at many Ontario human rights mediations.

Dr. Sookram also runs a private practice, Breakthrough Counselling, has been a longtime volunteer in the community at large, and has received over two hundred awards/recognitions for his work, which includes the Ontario Medal for Good Citizenship.

Kim Doogan is a Registered Social Worker, a Canadian Certified Life Care Planner, and a Certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor. Over more than 35 years, she has supported individuals and families facing challenges related to complex polytraumatic injuries, developmental disabilities, and chronic medical and mental health conditions. Her career has provided opportunities to work across institutional, hospital, and rehabilitation settings, in a leading personal injury law firm, and, since 2001, in private practice. She is the founder of Focus Rehabilitation Consulting Inc.

For the past 25 years, Kim has specialized in clinical case management and life care planning. Her work includes developing individualized therapy and care programs, providing rehabilitation, resource, and crisis counselling, and building collaborative care teams. She helps clients and families navigate complex regional, provincial, and federal systems and programs to secure the support and services they need. Kim is frequently retained as an expert witness to assess and determine future care costs in personal injury claims and litigation.

Advocacy and social justice remain central to Kim’s professional identity. She enjoys policy-focused work and has spent the past 14 years taking on increasing volunteer leadership roles with OASW’s motor vehicle accident subcommittee.

She serves as OASW’s co-representative and, more recently, the co-chair of the Coalition of Health Professional Associations in Auto Insurance. In these roles, she provides technical expertise and support to social workers, the OASW, and other allied health professionals working in this complex area of practice. Her social work education, training, and values continue to guide her strengths-based approach to client care, her ongoing contributions to the profession, and beyond.

"I have had the pleasure of being in the social work field for over 23 years. With an undergraduate degree in Gerontology from UofG, and a MSW from UofT, I knew my passion was to work with older adults within the health care system.
I have worked in a variety of roles and settings, from primary care, specialized geriatric mental health, and acute care. I have also worked abroad as a care coordinator in London England. I enjoy the challenge and opportunities in each of these roles to try to improve the lives of those I work with. I am a strong advocate for both the profession of social work and the people I have the pleasure of working with and learning from."

Erika Pozzuoli is a Registered Social Worker (BSW, MSW, RSW), entrepreneur, and mental health advocate committed to advancing accessible and equitable care. She is the founder and owner of Pure Mentality, a community-based mental wellness practice in Windsor-Essex that has grown from a small grassroots initiative into a multidisciplinary clinic serving individuals, couples, and families across the region.

With over a decade of professional experience in community social work, child welfare and private practice, Erika has built her career on identifying service gaps and developing innovative, community-responsive solutions. Under her leadership, Pure Mentality prioritizes timely access to care, affordable services, and inclusive service delivery.

Erika is also deeply committed to mentorship and professional development. She provides clinical supervision to both emerging and experienced therapists, strengthening ethical practice, practitioner confidence, and workforce sustainability within the social work profession.

A passionate advocate for equitable access, Erika created and sustains an unfunded sliding-scale counseling program that offers free to low-cost services for underserved and financially vulnerable populations. She supports this initiative through reinvestment of business proceeds from Rosie’s Mission, a feel-good shop for Mental Wellness that allows her to continue to connect community to mental health in a relatable way.

In addition, Erika serves as a Sole Focus Project Ambassador with the Canadian Mental Health Association, contributing to mental health awareness, stigma reduction, and community engagement. Through leadership, advocacy, and innovation, Erika continues to shape a more accessible, relatable and compassionate mental health system.

Agata Wesolowski is a dedicated Registered Social Worker and psychotherapist with a deep-rooted passion for supporting First Responders and adults with complex histories of childhood trauma. She is a Somatic Experiencing™ Practitioner, as well as a Certified EMDR Therapist and Consultant in Training, also trained in Ego State Therapy and various cognitive approaches.

For Agata, therapy is a collaborative process rooted in respect, compassion, and patience; it is meant to invite the individual’s strengths and build resilience to increase a sense of flexibility in their life.

Agata co-developed and ran a 10-week psychoeducation and process group for loved ones of First Responders. She noticed that loved ones are often left out of the conversation, and this group provided a space where they could gather to build community, safety, trust, and belonging. To follow her passion for learning and giving back to the community, Agata provides low cost EMDR Therapy consultation to local clinicians, and she recently had an opportunity to volunteer at an EMDR Therapy training to help with skill development of newly trained EMDR clinicians.