Amanda Hadidia

Woodgreen Community Services

Nominator Comments:

As a front-line social work specialist with the Financial Empowerment team at WoodGreen Community Services, Amanda works tirelessly to help people who are living in poverty to overcome financial crises, achieve financial goals and improve their stability and wellness. She approaches each client with humility, empathy, curiosity, and sensitivity to the multitude of intersectional barriers that impact their lives. She not only continues to drive transformational financial outcomes in the lives of her clients, but also collaborates across the agency to support her colleagues gain skills and confidence to help their clients overcome financial barriers. One example of Amanda’s work is with a 70-year-old client facing imminent homelessness where Amanda’s expertise, diligent advocacy and quick action expedited 5 years of overdue government pension benefits and health-related benefits within four weeks, a process that typically takes up to a year. The client received a retroactive payment of $13,000 and established a regular income source making it possible to secure permanent housing before the lease expiry.

Amanda’s creativity and passion for tackling each new opportunity for service innovation has supported the financial empowerment program in continual growth and is a one-person powerhouse for improving the wellbeing of vulnerable people – and she does it with humility, grace and an awesome sense of humor.