The Social Worker, CASW’s new national podcast celebrating the people, stories, and movements that shape social work in Canada.
Each episode features the voices shaping the past, present, and future of social work across Canada, from organizers and advocates to frontline workers and emerging leaders.
This is a space for truth-telling, reflection, inspiration, and bold conversations about where we go next.
Upcoming Episodes:
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The Social Worker Interview with Erin Beckwell, BSW, MSW, RSW
A life-long “pot-stirrer” and “boat rocker”, Erin is a social worker, consultant, and educator who is passionate about advocating for communities and organizations where all people can feel safe and connected and be as well as possible. She loves the challenge of finding creative ways to share information and stories, support one another, and provide compassionate care. Raised on a farm in Treaty 4 Territory in Southwest Saskatchewan, she, her wife, and their furry companions have called Treaty 6 Territory and Homeland of the Métis (Saskatoon, SK) home for over 20 years. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Julia Falzarano, MSW, RSW
With over a decade of clinical experience, Julia Falzarano is a dedicated Registered Social Worker and the founder of Willow Tree Wellness & Psychotherapy. She provides compassionate, evidence-based therapy for children, teens, adults, and families across Ontario with a deep specialization in grief, loss, and life transitions. Julia’s journey began working in pediatric development and community health settings, contributing to longitudinal research on childhood well-being before her focus shifted toward therapeutic care. Over time, personal experiences with loss sharpened her commitment to grief-informed care, a guiding value now woven into every facet of her practice. She integrates a blend of approaches from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Emotion-Focused Therapy (EFT) to Narrative Therapy, trauma-informed care, art therapy, and play-based modalities tailoring sessions to meet each person’s lived reality, pace, and needs. Julia believes healing begins in connection. Whether helping a child find emotional vocabulary, supporting a teen through loss, or walking alongside an adult navigating grief or identity challenges, she offers a warm, strengths-based space where people feel seen, heard, and supported. She prioritizes offering free monthly workshops to the community on an array of relevant topics related to social skills, emotional regulation, grief, and building confidence. Outside of therapy, Julia finds balance and grounding through running half-marathons, gardening, journaling, or curling up with a good book and her dog. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Karen Lok Yi Wong, RSW
Karen Lok Yi Wong is a registered social worker with extensive practice experience across community senior services, long-term care, and geriatric acute care. She has also been a long-time volunteer with organizations supporting older adults and people living with dementia. Her contributions to the profession have been recognized by the BC Association of Social Workers’ Inspiring Social Worker of the Year Award (2021) and the Canadian Association of Social Workers’ Distinguished Service Award (2023). Karen completed her PhD in Social Work at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines the lived experience of dementia, transnational family caregiving, elder care systems and policies, racialized inequities, aging and technology, and qualitative and participatory methodologies. In her doctoral work, informed by Institutional Ethnography, she explored how structural forces—including racism—shape access to formal dementia supports among Chinese communities in Vancouver. She has contributed to national research initiatives on dementia care transitions, stigma in Chinese communities, and anti-oppressive gerontological social work. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Marie-Michèle Doiron and Gaëlle Troude of l’Association québécoise des travailleuses sociales et travailleurs sociaux (AQTS) As we continue to celebrate National Social Work Month and the ACTS centennial, the Social Worker podcast is honoured to welcome Marie-Michèle Doiron and Gaëlle Troude from the AQTS. Marie-Michèle has been a social worker since 2009 and practices in Quebec City, where she works within the health network and is currently involved in union activities and negotiations. Gaëlle, a social worker since obtaining her master's degree, has built her career in community and institutional settings in Montreal, with a deep commitment to collaboration and systemic practice. In this special episode, Marie-Michèle and Gaëlle share how their personal journeys in social work began, as well as the path that led to the creation of the Quebec Association of Social Workers (AQTS) — a professional association dedicated to representing and advocating for social workers across Quebec. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Lisa Mishibinijima, RSW
Aanii, Kinew Kwe. Nintizhinikaas. Mkwa Dodem niinda’aw. M’chigeeng ndoonjibaa. My English name is Lisa Mishibinijima and my spirit name is Kinew Kwe (Golden Eagle Woman). I am a mixed white settler and Anishinaabekwe of the Bear Clan and a band member of M’chigeeng First Nation. Long before any professional role, I am first accountable to my relationships. I am a daughter, sister, mother, wife, cousin, friend, hunter, and helper. These responsibilities shape how I move through the world and how I show up in community. They are not separate from my work, they guide it. I spend much of my time harvesting and being on the land within the traditional territories of Obishikokaang First Nation. The land grounds me, teaches me, and reminds me of who I am and who I am accountable to. I grew up in a small community near Sudbury and moved to Sioux Lookout in 2009, where I have continued to live and work in community. For over 20 years, I have worked in various capacities including harm reduction, youth justice, counselling, shelters, management, and frontline direct service — always guided by a strong sense of responsibility to our people and the land. In 2024, I joined the Hepatitis C Program at the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority, where I continue to support healing and wellness in the communities I serve. I have also expanded my interests into research and have been grateful for opportunities to collaborate with different organizations in supporting community-based projects. My approach is shaped by both my lived experience and my education, including a Master of Social Work, and is grounded in the belief that the land and our relationships are our greatest teachers. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Jaeyell Kim, MSW, RSW
Jae (Jaeyell) is a registered social worker and psychotherapist in Toronto who brings his lived experience as a person of colour into his work. He is passionate about supporting clients from diverse cultural, racial, and family backgrounds, and is committed to offering a safe, non-judgmental, and trauma-informed space where people can be seen and heard. With a Master of Social Work from the University of Toronto and over 15 years of clinical experience, including extensive youth and family work at Lumenus Community Services and clinical supervision at CloudMD. Jae now also teaches full-time at George Brown College in the School of Social and Community Services. His practice focuses on helping youth and young adults navigate life transitions, identity, stress, and mental health challenges. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Tyler Coulbourne
Tyler Coulbourne (he/they) is a social worker, educator, and lifelong learner whose path into the profession was anything but linear. Before social work, Tyler worked more than fifty jobs, including as a flight attendant, photographer, bartender, international hiking guide, and pirate deckhand on a tall ship, experiences that continue to shape how they show up in practice today. Across all of them ran a consistent thread: a commitment to relationality, adult education, and supporting people to be well. Tyler holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Victoria, where they were one of a small number of settler students learning alongside Indigenous professors and peers, an experience grounded in decolonial theory and Indigenous ways of knowing that profoundly shaped their practice. Their work is deeply informed by decolonization, queer theory, and a commitment to holding complexity, paradox, and nuance rather than reaching for simple answers. Currently working with a regulatory college of social workers in Nova Scotia, Tyler designs and leads workshops and webinars rooted in anti-oppressive and liberatory practice. They hold with honesty the tension of belonging to a profession shaped by both harm and hope, and remain committed to pushing social work toward justice, accountability, mutual aid, and meaningful solidarity with Indigenous resistance and resurgence.
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The Social Worker Interview with Francesca Serwaa, RSW
Francesca is a trauma-informed mental health therapist, educator, and PMP-certified project professional dedicated to healing, growth, and community impact. She supports individuals and organizations through counselling, reintegration-focused programming and development. She is passionate about supporting Black communities, justice-involved individuals, and those navigating life transitions. Francesca proudly serves clients across the GTA. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys cooking, travelling, and Pilates. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Sophia Thomas, MSW, RSW
Sophia is registered with the Saskatchewan Association of Social Workers. She was raised in rural Saskatchewan and currently lives in Yorkton, Saskatchewan. She recently defended her Master of Social Work thesis titled "Exploring Experiences of Mental Health and Well-being with Post-Secondary Students in Rural Saskatchewan". She is certified Mental Health Commission of Canada Instructor for Mental Health First Aid and has offered this course to many communities since 2018. Sophia is currently on maternity leave from her position as advisor at Suncrest College and is wrapping up her first term as a sessional instructor for the University of Regina Faculty of Social Work.
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The Social Worker Interview with Alisha Stubbs, MSW, PhD(c)
Alisha is a Registered Social Worker, nonprofit executive, PhD candidate, and post-secondary instructor based in British Columbia. Her career reflects a multi-sector commitment to strengthening communities, spanning direct practice, organizational leadership, governance, research, and public service. With over a decade of frontline experience supporting individuals and families, Alisha brings both professional expertise and lived experience to her work. Her practice is grounded in relational accountability, identity-affirming approaches, and a deep commitment to social justice. As an Executive Director in the nonprofit sector, she leads strategy, governance, and service delivery within complex, publicly funded environments, emphasizing ethical leadership, sustainability, and systems change. As a former municipal councillor, she applied a critical social work lens to local governance, advancing advocacy and human rights in community decision-making spaces. Alisha teaches in post-secondary social work and social service programs, mentoring emerging practitioners to integrate critical reflection, policy awareness, and practical competencies into their work. Her doctoral research focuses on strengthening school social work competencies to better support autistic students’ non-academic needs in public education. Across sectors, she believes social work operates at individual, organizational, and political levels. She is passionate about social work because it is dynamic, evolving, and grounded in continual reflection and lifelong learning. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Madelaine Robillard
Madelaine Robillard is a social worker, expressive arts therapist, and the founder of a growing therapy and wellness collective in Calgary supporting trans, non-binary, and queer communities, as well as folks in the kink, non-monogamy, and sex work communities who are too often left without affirming services. Her path into the profession was anything but linear, moving through a decade of retail management, career counselling, and a series of pivots that took her through a domestic violence shelter, child welfare, and Indigenous health policy work. Madelaine pursued her diploma, bachelor's, and clinical master's in social work alongside a certification in expressive arts therapy, motivated by a desire to sit at the tables where decisions are made and to advocate for decolonizing the field and reducing barriers for both clients and clinicians. After experiencing burnout in high-demand policy work, she founded The Collective, building it deliberately around community partnership, clinician autonomy, harm reduction, and social justice rather than traditional private-practice hierarchy. Her practice is grounded in lived experience and a commitment to authenticity, creating spaces where clients and clinicians alike can show up unmasked, name their own experiences, and be celebrated rather than pathologized. Madelaine is a passionate advocate for knowing your rights as a practitioner, resisting predatory business practices, and refusing to sacrifice your values for employment, reminders she offers to the next generation of social workers. |
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The Social Worker Interview with Mabel Lam
Mabel Lam (she/her) is a registered social worker in Alberta whose journey into the profession began in Hong Kong, where she was born and raised and where she earned her Bachelor of Social Work. Fluent in three languages, she immigrated to Canada in 2022 following the pandemic and successfully had her academic credentials recognized and her registration assessed, later sharing her timeline and process through Facebook groups and YouTube to help other newcomer social workers follow the same path. Over the past decade, Mabel has built extensive frontline experience across schools, newcomer organizations, and domestic violence victim services, where she supported survivors through safety planning, court support, and trials. She currently works with the Government of Alberta's Victims of Crime Assistance Program, focusing on the quieter, administrative side of social work, reviewing case files and distributing vital financial benefits to victims of crime with a care for detail that recognizes how much rests on every letter and decision. A mother of two young boys, Mabel is candid about the emotional cost of this work and the importance of self-compassion, work-life balance, and honouring one's own humanity while supporting others. She is an advocate for building better structures of support for the profession, including the idea of an anonymous national helpline where social workers in crisis could seek help without shame, and she hopes that as technology advances, social work never loses its heart-to-heart, human-to-human connection. |
