All Webinars

As part of the year-long centennial celebration marking 100 years of social work in Canada, this virtual panel dialogue will bring together social work leaders to reflect on the profession’s historical foundations and to critically examine its future. Framed by the theme “100 Years: Reflecting on our Past, Reimagining our Future,” the conversation will explore how social work has been shaped by systems of power, resistance, and care, and how the profession can continue to advance justice, equity, and collective well-being in the decades ahead.  

By the end of this event, participants will be able to: 

• Reflect on key historical developments that have shaped social work in Canada 
• Examine how systems of oppression have influenced social work practice and education 
• Identify enduring lessons from the past that can inform ethical, justice-oriented social work today 
• Consider emerging priorities and responsibilities for social workers in shaping the next century of the profession

Social workers are experiencing high levels of burnout, with 28–52% reporting significant emotional exhaustion and rates rising in under-resourced settings. Burnout, however, is not experienced uniformly. Equity-denied professionals often carry additional burdens, including racial battle fatigue, code-switching strain, diversity labour, and heightened scrutiny, that compound occupational stress. Traditional burnout interventions frequently focus on individual resilience while overlooking the structural and intersectional conditions that produce practitioner exhaustion.  

The Art of Pausing™ is a justice-centred framework for ethical sustainability in helping professions. Informed by interdisciplinary scholarship across social work, public health, psychology, organizational studies, and African philosophy, the framework reframes pausing as a deliberate response to systemic depletion. It rests on four anchors: Structural (burnout is organizationally produced), Intersectional (identity shapes exposure to harm), Embodied (nervous system regulation supports ethical practice), and Spiritual (Ubuntu philosophy, “I am because we are”, centers collective care).  

In this interactive 90-minute webinar, participants will explore personal, relational, and structural strategies to address burnout, engage in brief grounding practices, and identify collective, ethics-aligned approaches to practitioner wellbeing and organizational accountability.

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Describe The Art of Pausing™ framework and identify indicators of personal and collective rest deficits using research-informed criteria.
• Explain how intersecting identities (e.g., race, gender, immigration status) shape differential exposure to burnout, vicarious trauma, and moral distress in social work practice.
• Critically examine dominant professional narratives that pathologize rest and normalize overwork, recognizing structural drivers of practitioner exhaustion.
• Apply intersectional, trauma-informed, and anti-oppressive strategies across three levels of intervention: personal practices, relational care, and structural change.
• Identify systemic contributors to burnout and outline collective, ethics-aligned approaches to organizational accountability and practitioner sustainability.

This webinar provides an overview of intimate partner violence (IPV) in older adults, with a focus on understanding key risk factors and common barriers to help-seeking. Participants will review safety planning strategies that are currently used with older adults and consider how these approaches can be adapted to account for health needs, mobility limitations, cognitive changes, and dependence on partners for care or financial support. The session will highlight existing resources, referral options, and reporting considerations relevant to working with older survivors, including domestic violence services, aging networks, and adult protective systems. Emphasis is placed on helping participants recognize, access, and appropriately connect older adults to supports while promoting safety, autonomy, and dignity.

This webinar is intended to increase awareness of intimate partner violence among older adults. Professionals will:

• Identify key factors for intimate partner violence in older adults
• Apply safety planning strategies that work for older adults
• Review resources and reporting considerations
• Identify and adapt ongoing care and support strategies

Collaboration is often celebrated as a pathway to innovation and impact, yet partnerships that are not intentionally designed can unintentionally reproduce the same inequities they seek to address. This keynote explores how organizations, leaders, and practitioners can move beyond symbolic collaboration toward partnerships grounded in transparency, mutual accountability, and equitable power-sharing.

Participants will examine common dynamics that undermine authentic collaboration—including uneven decision-making authority, extractive partnerships, and invisible labour—and explore practical strategies for building partnerships that protect voice, integrity, and community priorities. Through reflection and discussion, the session invites participants to rethink what effective collaboration truly requires and how equitable partnerships can strengthen leadership, sustainability, and collective impact.

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate between symbolic collaboration and equitable partnership models that promote shared leadership and accountability.
• Identify structural and relational factors that influence power dynamics within collaborative initiatives.
• Recognize common risks and unintended harms in partnerships that can silence or marginalize diverse voices.
• Apply guiding principles for equitable collaboration that strengthen trust, transparency, and collective impact.
• Reflect on their own partnership practices and identify opportunities to foster more inclusive, sustainable collaborations within their work.

Social workers play a critical role in supporting young people navigating identity, belonging, and wellbeing. This webinar will equip practitioners with research-informed insights to better understand youth detransitioning and its implications for ethical, compassionate practice.

To better understand the phenomenon of “detransition,” we conducted a three-part study that included: a qualitative investigation of the life experiences of youth identifying as detrans (N=25); an online questionnaire-based study evaluating the perceptions and experiences of healthcare professionals (N=61); and an analysis of the discourse conveyed in both social and traditional media. In this presentation, we will summarize the main findings from the three components, as well as from other emerging evidence, showing that discontinuation and detransitions experiences are diverse and associated with a range of experiences that cannot be reduced to a simple notion grief, or regret.  Implication for social work practice will conclude the presentation.

In this webinar, participants will: 

• learn key concepts to understand transition and detransition; 
• examine recent research evidence on detransition and discontinuation among youth;
• and develop a nuanced understanding of the experiences of discontinuation and detransition and how to best support young people.

This webinar will introduce social workers to a specialized team that works in the field of countering violent extremism. A frontline registered psychotherapist and social work manager will present on how they work as a team to address complex cases. Special attention will be paid to how the team environment and operations facilitate successful frontline work.

Frontline social workers will:

• Be able to identify their competencies and learning needs in working with this client population
• Engage in reflexive thinking and consider their countertransference regarding clients who believe in hateful ideologies
• Better understand the role of self-care and personal or professional values to sustain work in this context
• Understand what it means to be both accountable to, and draw support from, a team or supervisor

Supervisors will:

• Identify training gaps for social workers that are engaging with clients who hate  
• Understand the specific needs of frontline workers engaging with this population
• Encourage a team approach of collaborative decision-making for issues such as delegating roles or addressing safety concerns

This webinar will bring not only a trauma-informed lens when working with children and youth in care, but will also demonstrate why it's important that social workers and social work technicians are child/youth focused in their roles. Tara Pelletier-Silas brings her personal experience being a former youth in care alongside her front-line expertise to shine a light on the importance of secure connections in social work professionals’ front-line work.

The work social work professionals do with children/youth in care will be long-lasting; there is an opportunity and a responsibility to make a lasting, positive impact where possible. This webinar is a call to social work professionals to shift their perspective when speaking about "behaviours" from a youth/child to symptoms - symptoms of trauma. When social work professionals lead with authenticity, transparency, human connection and validation, social workers are allowing room for these children/youth to heal.

This webinar is intended to help professionals learn about and engage with the following ideas:

• Trauma-informed understanding of presenting issues (such as recognizing that borderline personality disorder traits often results from trauma & leading with trauma-informed approach)
• Considerations/realities when working with youth in care from a personal perspective (the impact social work role/involvement can have- good and bad / what's beneath the surface that we forget)
• The dangers of labelling kids/youth ("challenging" "out of control")
• The importance of fostering secure connections as a front-line worker (being youth-centred, transparency, validation, advocacy, trust etc.)
• Holding service providers/care givers and professionals accountable when working with youth in care (working as a team/collaboratively for the child/youth and avoiding tunnel vision).

This webinar explores the unique experiences of older survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) and the challenges they face in seeking support. Participants will learn about key barriers to disclosure and help-seeking among older adults, including age-related, social, and systemic factors. The session will introduce trauma- and violence-informed approaches to intervention, highlighting practical strategies that promote safety, dignity, and empowerment. Participants will also examine screening and risk assessment processes relevant to working with older survivors of IPV, with attention to identifying risk, responding appropriately, and supporting informed decision-making.

This webinar is intended to increase awareness of intimate partner violence among older adults. Professionals will:

• Learn key barriers to disclosure and help-seeking faced by older survivors of IPV.
• Identify trauma- and violence-informed strategies appropriate for intervention with older survivors of IPV.
• Review screening and risk assessment processes relevant to older survivors of IPV.

In Canada, violent extremist ideologies are ever evolving in a context of increased social polarization. This webinar will provide an overview of violent extremist ideologies, starting with ideologies deemed traditional in the field of counter-terrorism, such as white nationalism, salafi-jihadism, and anti-government extremism, as well as newer violent ideologies, such as Christian Nationalism, extreme misogyny, conspiracy-based ideologies, and nihilism. This knowledge will equip participants to be competent at identifying when services users are engaging with violent extremist rhetoric or on a pathway towards radicalization to violence.

Participants will learn the following:

• An overview of violent extremist ideologies that are affecting Canadians
• Understand the growing role of misogyny and white nationalism
• Become aware of new trends in ideologies that target youth and women
• Be better able to detect extremist ideologies that are affecting service users

The population in Canada is growing older.  The fourth annual report “Perspectives on Growing Older in Canada” released in January 2026 highlights why the way we age matters to Canada’s future.  The experience of intimate partner violence will affect the aging process.  This presentation focuses on raising awareness about intimate partner violence (IPV) among older adults to help professionals better understand how it appears in later life. It explains how the term “older adult” is defined and clarifies the distinction between IPV in later life and elder abuse.  The dynamics of power, control, and violence will be examined and how that presents in older adult relationships. It reviews what is known about the prevalence of IPV among older adults and highlights the challenges involved in identifying and measuring it. The presentation explores how aging can intensify the physical, emotional, social, and financial effects of IPV. Finally, it discusses the factors that increase risk for older adults, including health changes, dependency, and social isolation, with the goal of strengthening professional awareness and improving responses to IPV in later life.

This webinar is intended to increase awareness of intimate partner violence among older adults. Professionals will:

• Learn how older adult is defined
• Examine the difference between intimate partner violence (IPV) in later life and elder abuse
• Explore the prevalence of IPV in older adults
• Discuss the impact of IPV and aging
• Learn about factors that increase risk of IPV for older adults