About Us

We’re a community-based organization that provides support, advocacy, and networking opportunities for Black social workers.

Our organization is rooted in the principle of “umoja,” a Swahili word that means unity. We believe in the power of collective action and strive to create a strong and supportive community for Black social workers.

Our goal is to promote the professional development, empowerment, and well-being of Black social workers. We work to achieve this by offering a range of services and resources, including:

Professional development workshops and training sessions
Mentorship programs
Advocacy and support for issues affecting Black social workers
Networking opportunities with other Black social workers

We recognize the unique challenges that Black social workers face in the workplace and in society at large. Our organization is committed to addressing systemic racism and discrimination in the social work profession and to creating a more equitable and just society for all. We welcome Black social workers at all stages of their career, from students to seasoned professionals. We also welcome allies who share our values and mission.

Our Team

As seen on a Sussex Directories Inc site

Andria Allen

Andria has a deep commitment to Anti Racism and Anti-Oppression. She has worked in the not-for-profit sector for over 30 years focusing on Individual and systemic struggles with diverse communities. Andria began her career in child development, parent education, and Community Development, then moved into leadership roles. Andria has provided significant work with the Muslim Community, women in the criminal justice system, and children and adults’ mental health.

Andria graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University and the University of Toronto, Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, with a Bachelor of Social Work and a Master of Social Work degree, respectively.

Andria has recognized the struggles and challenges that Black Social Workers experience distinct from other social workers and is proud to offer an opportunity to begin to reduce the obstacles.

Andria Allen

Julet Allen

Julet Allen has over 25 years of experience in the social service sector as a social worker in Toronto, Canada where she has successfully worked with various organizations in a leadership role to achieve impactful outcomes for those on the margins. Currently she is a professor at Humber College in the Faculty of Community and Social Services where she teaches in the Community Justice Diploma Program.

She brings expertise within the fields of Youth Engagement with special focus on Black youth in the child welfare and justice systems, anti-Black racism, poverty, and trauma. She is well versed in working from practices rooted in decolonization, anti-Black racism, and anti-oppression frameworks.

Julet Allen

Terry Gardiner, MSW, RSW

Terry Gardiner is a social worker, educator and consultant who has engaged and supported community work with a focus on inclusion across many sectors.

Terry has supported young children in early childhood settings and worked in the children’s mental health sector with families facing a range of challenges. He has also taught Early Childhood Education students at the university level.

For over a decade, he provided support and consultation to graduate social work students, faculty and staff on individual, interpersonal and structural issues of equity, diversity and inclusion and has led training and onboarding for successive new graduate student cohorts.

He spearheaded the development of the task force on Race and Indigeneity in Kinesiology and Physical Education that produced recommendations on increased representation and participation for Black and Indigenous students, staff and faculty across all sport and physical activity spheres at the University of Toronto.

He has supervised graduate and undergraduate students in both social work and early childhood education, and delivered trauma informed training to instructors at the Transition Year Program at the University of Toronto.

He is currently the Director, Student Programs at the University Of Toronto Faculty Of Law where he oversees the Indigenous Initiatives Office, mental health programming and co-curricular activities for over 600 law students.

Terry maintains a private practice specializing in working with individuals and families who have experienced trauma and are impacted by oppression.

Terry Gardiner

Lori Chambers

Lori A. Chambers, MSW, Ph.D., RSW, is a policy analyst and community health scholar whose research interests include decolonized knowing, performance narrative methodologies, racialized women’s health, and intersectional approaches to social policy. As a Senior Policy Analyst in the Government of Canada, she advocates for critically reflexive policymaking that stays true to her social work values. As a community health advocate, she collaborates with community scholars to develop arts-based knowledge gathering and sharing methods grounded in the home-knowing of people of African descent. Her decolonizing approach to social work research was featured in the 2021 edited book “Africentric Social Work,” a foundational text on African-centered service provision written with, for, and by Black Canadian social workers.

Lori Chambers

Carla Neto

Carla is the Executive Director of Women’s Habitat of Etobicoke. Her work experience, combined with her Bachelor of Social Work, current studies for an MBA (specializing in Management and Leadership), intersectional feminist lens, anti-racist/anti-oppressive, trauma-informed and harm reduction principles, made her a good fit for this role. Carla came to Women’s Habitat with over two decades of sector experience and quickly became an asset to the agency. She has up-levelled service delivery, led the creation of innovative approaches and new programming, as the Manager of Community Programs at Women’s Habitat of Etobicoke, where she managed Counseling Services, Housing and Transitional Supports Services, Parenting programs, Girls-focused programs and Life Skills Drop-in programs. Prior to coming to Women’s Habitat, Carla managed the YWCA Toronto Women’s Shelter and Transitional Housing and Support Program for over 10 years. Additional Carla was the Co-chair of the Board of Director’s for the Woman Abuse Council of Toronto (WomanACT) from 2011 until 2018. Since then she has joined two other Boards, namely, the Jean Tweed Centre and Abrigo. Carla believes that service delivery must support capacity, resiliency building and sustainability for the women and their dependents seeking services as well as be in alignment with strategies to end gender-based violence. Under Carla’s leadership, the Women’s Habitat Outreach Centre enhanced and delivered programs that focus on skill building and housing readiness as well as prevention-focused programing for boys and young men.

Carla is a transformational leader with effective problem-solving abilities and a mentor with the ability to build strong and creative teams by fostering a culture of collaboration, diversity and inclusion. Carla is a strategic and caring leader, who is well loved by her staff, and respected for her ability to make good decisions that balance our organizational goals with the needs of our people. She has also been instrumental in landing our ARAO and inclusion policies. Carla has demonstrated the ability to rebuild a strong organizational culture that values equity, and which will help Women’s Habitat attract and retain the talent it needs to take the organization to the next level. Over the years Carla has established strong sector network relationships, which has unequivocally raised the organization’s profile externally.

Carla Neto

Marsha Brown

Since entering the not-for-profit sector in 1994, Marsha Brown has committed her expertise to the work of supporting clients in goal attainment and self sufficiency. A resource broker, she is known for her creativity in leveraging a wide range of services for disadvantaged individuals, providing therapeutic counselling and developing professional transformative workshops.

Ms. Brown is currently the Vice-President at the Jean Augustine Centre for Young Women’s Empowerment, creating opportunities for girls ages 7-17, to strive within their diverse identities. During her extensive career at the YWCA Toronto, Marsha coordinated programs in the employment and housing sector, with a focus on empowering survivors of domestic violence.

Marsha is an active community builder and social justice advocate. A member of the Junior League of Toronto, a charity organization tasked with training women to become civic leaders, she was recently nominated as the Director of Community and Outreach. Ms. Brown is also an active alumni of Toronto Metropolitan University, formally Ryerson University, establishing The Women Champions of Diversity Award in 2019 and volunteers with a number of committees. An ambassador with Food For The Poor Canada since 2018, she participates in promoting the philanthropic activities of the organization, fundraising to build homes and schools for marginalized families and providing aid across the Caribbean and Latin America.

Her mantra is “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” – Gandhi. A devote mom to her two wonderful children Kia and Kory, Marsha holds a Bachelors of Social Work, with a Minor in Public Administrator from Ryerson University, complemented by an extensive list of professional certificates and awards.

Marsha Brown

Donna Alexander

Donna Alexander is a Social Worker with a specialisation in addiction and mental health. She currently serves on the Equity & Inclusion Council at the Department of Psychiatry and is also an Adjunct Lecturer at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto.

Donna currently serves on the Community Advisory Committee for Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and the Healthcare Task Force of the Black Opportunity Fund.

She also serves on the Pathways to Care Project for Black youth. She previously served as Vice President of Black Health Alliance and was a member of the Black Experiences in Health Care Initiative at Sinai Health Systems.

Donna facilitates training for staff at community-based agencies on factors relating to concurrent disorders and cultural safety in clinical practice.

Donna holds a Master of Social work from the University of Toronto and currently works in the Substance Abuse Program for African Canadian & Caribbean Youth (SAPACCY) at the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health

Donna Alexander

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