FIFSW Alumni Association Annual General Meeting

Please join us for the Annual General Meeting of the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work Alumni Associationon (FIFSWAA) on Monday, June 24^th, 2024 from 6:30PM to 8:00PM.

This hybrid event will feature the keynote presentation “Building the Capacity of Social Workers — The Benefits of Simulation Training,” with Megan Davies, FIFSW Alumna and Simulation Coordinator, and Andrea W. Westbrook, MSW & PhD Student, FIFSW.

Alumni will also be called on to vote for nominees applying to fill open positions on the FIFSWAA Board. More information and supporting documentation is provided below.

All FIFSW alumni are welcome to attend and participate.

Event Details

When: Monday June 24, 2024 | 6:30pm to 8:00pm EST
Where: Hybrid |In person:  246 Bloor Street West, Room 422 | Online: via Zoom

Registration:

• To register to attend in-person, please RSVP to alumni.fifsw@utoronto.ca with subject line: RSVP for FIFSWAA AGM 2024. Kindly provide your first name and last name in your email along with any dietary restrictions you have and any accessibility accommodations you would like to request.
• Register to attend online.

AGM supporting documents

• Alumni unable to attend the AGM in person or online but wish to vote may complete a Proxy Form [PDF].
• Statement of Accounts [PDF]
• Nominees for the FIFSW Alumni Association’s Board of Directors [PDF]
• Terms of reference [PDF]
• 2023-2024 Engagement Summary [PDF]

Keynote Presentation

“Building the Capacity of Social Workers—The Benefits of Simulation Training” with Megan Davies, FIFSW Alumna and Simulation Coordinator and Andrea W. Westbrook, MSW & PhD Student, FIFSW

About The Talk

Simulation-based Training uses trained actors as standardized clients and recreates real-life conditions to provide a realistic experience for social work students and new or experienced social workers. Simulation training can help social workers safely practice their skills in an environment similar to the complex situations they will encounter in their practice. This panel will outline how simulation is used in the classroom with MSW students and how it is being utilized in community organizations with social workers and other social service professionals.

About The Speakers

Megan Davies has an MSW from the FIFSW (1997) and over 25 years of post-MSW experience in the areas of children’s mental health, pediatric health care as well as working at the FIFSW for more than 10 years in a variety of roles. In addition to supervising MSW practicum students in several community settings, Megan has worked as a student advisor in the FIFSW’s Indigenous and Trauma Resiliency (ITR) field of study, as a student advisor with international MSW students, and since July 2020 Megan has been the coordinator of the FIFSW’s Simulation Program which offers MSW students experiential learning opportunities in the classroom setting to practice direct social work skills interviewing simulated clients.

Andrea W. Westbrook (she/her) is a PhD Student at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. She received her Master of Social Work degree, with a specialization in health and mental health, from the University of Toronto and her Bachelor of Social Work degree from Toronto Metropolitan University. She also holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from OCAD University, where she explored the integration of her social justice and arts-based practices. Her PhD research is focused on non-policing approaches for community-based mental health crisis interventions.

Outside of her academic work, Andrea is currently the manager of the Toronto Community Crisis Service (TCCS) team in the downtown central and downtown east neighbourhoods of Toronto. Andrea has been a registered social worker for over 10 years, predominantly in the downtown east of Toronto, working within the HIV sector, in community mental health, and with people who are street-involved. Throughout her work, she has seen the importance of delivering a diverse range of support needs and styles, and she loves discussing how we can be creative within our approaches to this work. She feels privileged to be invited into the communities she gets to work in and to have personal stories of strength and resiliency shared with her. She doesn’t take this privilege for granted.