Pat Convery

Pat Convery is a RSW who brings over 40 years of clinical experience in adoption, child welfare, assessment and mediation. She spent many years with Children’s Aid Societies, working as an adoption social worker and in adoption program development and coordination. Pat is committed to her belief that children and youth should never grow up in foster care, that adoption is the best option for permanency and we must do everything we can to find a family for each child. We must also ensure that every child who cannot live with their biological family is able to know their family’s and their lifestory and remain connected to birth family and culture after they move to their adoptive family.

Shannon Deacon

Shannon Deacon is a Registered Soial Worker and dedicated parent to a small child.  With 22 years at the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, Shannon worked with some of the city’s most vulnerable populations, providing front line support and later as the Coordinator of the Therapeutic Access Program, where she honed her skills in assessing and supporting teaching for parents with attachment ruptures.  In 2023, Shannon made the decision to leap from Child Welfare and now works in a busy private therapy practice, supporting humans big and little with life’s challenges.  She is the current chair of the Task Force and remains committed to improving the experience of families at risk.

Katherine Duncan

Katherine Duncan worked for 46 years for the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto. For 18 years she was a frontline worker in Family Services, Children”s Services and Homefinding and Placement. Following that she was a supervisor of a Child in Care team and then a Family Service team. Together with Mary Rella and Shannon Deacon they created the Therapeutic Access programme for the Society. Katherine was a member of the CAST peer support team for 20 years and served with NOVA in providing psychosocial intervention in Mississippi following the Katrina hurricane. She was a foster parent for CAST from 1972 to 1978. Now retired, Katherine has been on the Canadian Red Cross Emergency Disaster team for 4 years, and is a Board member for Access for Parents and Children Ontario.

Gitte Granofsky

Birgittte Granofsky (known as Gitte) is a retired Psychological Associate educated in Denmark. Gitte worked for many years at the Shoniker Clinic, a mental health clinic in Scarborough. She has been a member of The Children in Limbo Task Force since year 2002, some of that time as its Chair.

Dr. Sally Palmer, MSW, PhD

Sally Palmer has spent her career in Child Welfare as a front-line worker, supervisor, staff trainer, and researcher. She is a Professor Emeritus from McMaster School of Social Work. Her book, “Maintaining family ties: Inclusive practice in foster care” (Child Welfare League of America) focusses on responding to the feelings and behaviour of children who have been separated from their biological parents, and including families in their lives.

Mary Price-Cameron

Mary Price-Cameron has spent the last 17 years working in child welfare at the Therapeutic Family Care Program (TFC) and is currently the Program Manager. The TFC program is a highly innovative, progressive and clinically oriented child welfare program servicing the Children’s Aid Societies of Durham, Kawartha-Haliburton, and Highland Shores. Prior to this, knowledge and experience was gained working in therapeutic homes for children with LOFT Community Services,  as well as the Durham District School Board. Mary is a graduate of the Child and Youth Care program at the Toronto Metropolitan University (previously Ryerson), and George Brown College.

Sherri-Ann Alexander