I first started to work at Jewish Family Services social center in 1976. I graduated with an MSW at McGill with a concentration in child welfare, and I got a job at JFS in the youth protection program. From that point, I became a supervisor in child welfare. I worked from ’76-80 with two short maternity leaves, and then I did a year as a research director on evaluating social services in Jewish hospitals. Then, I went off for a little while to work at McGill University and Université de Montreal as a researcher. As my children grew, I came back in ’84 to be the director of School Social Services, which I did for five years. Then I left from ’89-93 to work at the Y, and eventually came back to be the director of JFS. At the time, the government had withdrawn funding for JFS, so the organization switched to become a community-funded agency. We were in redevelopment mode from ’93 onward, and I stayed until 2002. During those nine years as director of JFS we grew tremendously, from a budget of $1 million to $5 million.

The first two years of my executive directorship were very exciting because we were really growing. We had to change our mindset and become more entrepreneurial, client/community-oriented, and we had to develop new sources of funding. We reintroduced a family counselling program which had fallen by the wayside, we developed a program for mental health clients, we grew the school program from Jewish day schools-only to a much larger system that helped p We also revamped the way we worked with poor families.

I think Ometz is one of the most critical agencies in the Montreal community, both Jewish and general, in that it serves the most vulnerable families; “vulnerability” defined in many ways—in terms of income, capacity, marginalization, affiliation, and identification. Ometz is a lifeline. It enables people to live in the community with dignity and support. It also enables people to become independent and to get a leg up when they need it. It helps those in need move on with their lives.

I have worked almost my entire career in Jewish communal organizations. From Ometz I became the executive director of the Y, where I was for close to five years. I then moved to Toronto where I became the CEO of Jewish Federations of Canada-UIA. That being said, I always look back on my years at JFS as being among the most interesting and stimulating. I really believe that the organization made a huge difference in the lives of the people we helped, and as a professional, I grew enormously and had amazing opportunities.