Social work across services and generations: Jewish Family and Child Service

Posted on April 28, 2026
Categories: Alumni + Friends, Micheal L. Shier, Partners

Jewish Family & Child Service staff gather for a Challah Bake in 2025

When Sascha Gurwitz started working as a social worker in child welfare, she saw families struggling with multiple challenges — poverty, housing, parenting stress, mental‑health concerns — but had limited tools to respond, beyond ensuring immediate safety. She wanted to do more to help.

“Any one of us is one accident, one diagnosis, one circumstantial difference from sitting where we are now, to sitting on the other side and needing services,” she says.

While pursuing a master’s degree at the University of Toronto’s Factor‑Inwentash Faculty of Social Work (FIFSW), Gurwitz learned about Jewish Family and Child Service (JF&CS) from a classmate who worked there. Drawn to support the Jewish community she’d grown up in and inspired by JF&CS’s wrap-around approach, she joined as a social worker. More than twenty years later, she’s still there today — now as manager of family services.

“Because we’re a multi service agency, clients can access counselling, financial empowerment, youth programs or domestic‑violence support,” she says. “And as a social worker, you can gain experience across different areas. There are so many opportunities for growth and collaboration.”

More than 155 years supporting underserved communities

JF&CS dates back to 1868, when the Toronto Hebrew Ladies’ Sick and Benevolent Society began supporting Jewish immigrants who were not welcomed in the city’s hospitals or social services. After the Second World War, the agency helped find homes for close to 1,000 Holocaust orphans and today supports approximately 1,000 Survivors in the GTA.

Over the years, JF&CS has expanded into four locations and more than 30 programs across child welfare, counselling, poverty reduction, domestic‑violence support, and services for people with developmental disabilities.

The agency supports people across the lifespan. It operates a day‑treatment school in partnership with the Toronto District School Board, providing intensive academic and mental‑health support for middle‑ and high‑school students and helping them transition back to mainstream classrooms. JF&CS’s unique financial‑empowerment and problem‑solving program helps clients get out of debt, find employment and secure housing, while building longer‑term stability — enabling many to move out of poverty within two years. For older adults, including Holocaust survivors, culturally attuned programs, such as a partnership with Sinai Health’s Circle of Care, a home and community care provider, address isolation, grief, and end‑of‑life needs, helping them age with dignity.

Across all services, the focus is on strengthening and supporting individuals, children, and families. Guided by the Jewish value of tikkun olam, which means to “repair the world,” the agency was created by and for the Jewish community. But its services are open to all.

“We were all formed at a time when the doors were closed to us,” JF&CS CEO Talyah Breslin says of Jewish organizations established in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “But we all universally made the same decision, which guides us today: that we will never close our doors to anybody else in need.”

Culturally attuned and trauma-informed care

While welcoming people of all cultures, JF&CS is grounded in Jewish tradition. From offering access to kosher food pantries and holiday meals, to small gestures such as helping a client attend a high holiday service or arranging for a mezuzah (a sacred doorway blessing) for a new home, the agency works to foster safety and belonging.

Talyah Breslin and a Holocaust survivor at a Café Europa event

Full-circle moments are common. Holocaust orphans who found homes through the agency return to speak at staff events, and many Survivors stay connected through Café Europa, a social program run together with the Bernard Betel Centre, where participants meet every month to share a meal, listen to music and dance.

At the same time, a rise in antisemitism has left many Survivors unsettled. One woman, frightened and disoriented, came directly to the agency because it was the one place she knew she’d find help.

Responding to a growing self-esteem crisis among younger generations, JF&CS developed an initiative called Roots, Ruach, and Resilience (ruach is the Hebrew word for spirit or pride), which brings Jewish middle-school students together for challah bakes, outings, and cultural discussions that help them reconnect with their identity.

“Clients want to be somewhere they feel safe and where their experiences will be understood and validated,” says Gurwitz, noting that other clients have shifted their counselling to JF&CS for the same reason.

Following the attacks of October 7th, 2023, the agency’s first priority was its staff. Many were directly affected, and people came into the office to be with colleagues. Leadership created space for debriefing, brought in trauma‑support resources and adjusted regular operations.

“We made it clear to our staff that this wasn’t business as usual,” says Breslin. “If I don’t take care of my staff first, they won’t be able to support anybody else.”

Staff then mobilized to support the wider community, coordinating trauma-informed workshops, helping Israeli newcomers access settlement and mental-health supports, and working with partner agencies to ensure people could get help in a safe, welcoming place.

Connections with the Factor‑Inwentash Faculty of Social Work

Several social work students from FIFSW have found their way to JF&CS through practicum. And many social workers have built long careers there, with employees marking 20, 30 or even 47 years of service.

The wrap-around service model not only benefits clients, but staff learning as well, says Breslin. “Students aren’t limited to one area. They can shadow different teams and learn what practice looks like across programs.”

The agency is also connected to the faculty through research. Its Director of Research and Evaluation, Dr. Nikki Mann, is currently partnering with Associate Dean, Academic and Professor Micheal Shier, Canada Research Chair in Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship in the Human Services. Together, they are testing a new tool, developed through a multi-sectoral partnership and led by JF&CS, to help nonprofit human service organizations in Ontario assess and strengthen poverty reduction approaches in ways that reduce the economic vulnerability that people seeking services experience. The work is part of JF&CS’s drive to develop socially innovative initiatives that help reduce trauma and discrimination faced by those experiencing poverty when seeking services and is an example of the agency’s efforts to deepen university-community partnerships.

Meanwhile, Gurwitz feels she’s able to make a real difference through the agency’s integrated service approach.

“There are things that happen in everyone’s life, and sometimes you have a safety net,” she says. “If you don’t, this is the safety net.”

By Carolyn Morris