Meet The Team
Josh Lamers (he/they)
Executive Lead & Core Member
Josh is one of the co-creators of CCWS and is a core member and the Executive Lead of CCWS. Josh is a Black queer gender nonconforming, disabled mad community organizer and child welfare survivor/abolitionist. Josh spent the first 3.5 years of his life in and out of foster care in rural Ontario until experiencing further racial displacement in adoption to a white home in another predominantly white rural town. Josh’s community and academic work centres the intersections of Blackness, Disability and madness, child welfare survivorship, queerness and transness. Josh is the co-creator of various Black radical spaces that organize against anti-Black racism in institutions like post-secondary education. Josh’s award-winning research centres the abolition of child welfare through the experiences of Black child welfare survivors and families. Josh has his Bachelor and Master of Social Work from Toronto Metropolitan University University, his Juris Doctor from University of Windsor, and is currently doing his Ph.D. at Osgoode Hall Law, York University. Josh’s doctoral autoethnographic research focuses on the question of whether the experiences and outcomes of the legal adoption of Black children into white families reflect the paramount purpose of the Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, 2017 with respect to promoting the best interests, protection and well-being.
Ashley Ash (she/her)
Core Member
Ashley Ash (She/Her) is Indian and spent the first 12 years of her life with the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto before being made a Crown Ward. Shortly after she went through a racial displacement through adoption into a white family. Ashley has spoken at numerous speaking engagements to young people involved in adoption, adoptive parents, adoption workers, social workers and lawyers and judges involved in child welfare. She currently holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law. Ashley also worked at various organizations such as the Office of the Ontario Child Advocate, speciality legal aid clinics, and she is also a national-award winning writer who uses her prose to communicate the messages important to her and her community.
Thaila Dixon-Eeet (they/them)
Community Development & Outreach Coordinator & Core Member
Thaila is one of the co-creators of CCWS and our Community Development and Outreach Coordinator. Thaila is a Black queer non-binary neurodivergent mad child welfare survivor and abolitionist, of Jamaican ethnic background mixed with white on their mother’s side. Thaila was placed in group homes beginning at the age of 13, was in semi-independent living and then independent living at the age of 16 until they aged out at 21 years old. Since the age of 15, Thaila’s advocated for changes within the child welfare system as a youth at the Office of the Ontario Child Advocate. With their own experiences of the various forms of violence that occur towards Black girls in group homes, Thaila’s advocacy lead to benefits for child welfare survivors generally, such as creation of the HSBC Fund through the Children’s Aid Foundation. Thaila was the Director of Youth Engagement at Cross Over Youth, while also doing case management where they supported child welfare survivors dealing with the criminal punishment system. Thaila is also an entrepreneur within the tattoo industry, marrying their social justice work with tattooing and co-founding the Rose Underground, which is a collective of BIPOC tattoo artists addressing anti-Black racism and other forms of oppression in the industry. Thaila extended this work into opening their own shop with other BIPOC tattoo artists in downtown Toronto called TruTattoo Shop.
Kaito Kuwahara (they/them)
Social Media Coordinator
Kaito is a queer transmasculine person of colour and settler living in Tkaronto. As someone positioned at the intersections of oppression and privilege, Kaito is passionately committed to supporting and empowering child welfare survivors through anti-racist, decolonial, and trauma-informed justice work. They believe in virtual outreach that is inclusive, accessible, intentional, and motivated by critical thinking. Kaito holds a Social Service Work Diploma from Seneca College and a Bachelor of Social Work from Lakehead University. They will soon be starting their Master of Social Work at Renison University College. Kaito’s personal and professional goal is to recognize the past and ongoing harms of social work(ers) on marginalized communities as a way to actively disrupt the various social and systemic barriers that people continue to experience here on Turtle Island, or what is colonially named “Canada”.
Jordan Lentinello (she/her)
Research & Education Coordinator
Jordan is a second-generation Jamaican-Bajan, Black Canadian. She was born in Toronto and grew up in Mississauga before attending McMaster university. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Masters of Art in Global Politics in the years following. Her work experience includes project coordination, advocacy, and committee work. She has spoken at the Canadian Association for the Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment in Higher Education and other higher education equity events. Jordan’s paternal familiar history with child welfare drives her interest in her working with CCWS. Jordan’s wider research focuses on anti-Black racism on a transnational scale, as well as domestically, often exploring ways an anti-oppressive practice framework can challenge and dismantle such. Her work is informed by and honors Black Feminist theory.
Camila Hernandez (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Camila is a queer Chilena currently living in Tkaronto after being raised in the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas/The City of Hamilton. Growing up in a white, middle-class neighbourhood as a racialized immigrant woman was instrumental in creating the basis of her values, ethics and the importance of accessible community spaces. Being one of a few racialized people in a white classroom made her keenly aware of race and class, how that influences one’s opportunities and how one is perceived. This has guided her in fighting for queer equity, racial justice, dismantling state violence and working towards abolition and liberation. She is a lover of rowing on the water, bike rides, and creating anything with her hands. A multidisciplinary creative formally trained in the arts, Camila hopes to eventually use her love and knowledge of creating to help those on healing journeys to connect to both their mind and body.
Sophie Wirzba (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Sophie is a 2021 graduate of McGill University where she studied Political Science and International Development, focusing on relationships between people and the environment and social policy. Sophie currently works in sustainability consulting, aiming to mitigate negative impacts of environmental projects on marginalized communities. Over summer 2020 and summer 2021, Sophie worked as an online camp counsellor for the Tim Hortons Children’s Foundation where several of her campers and coworkers were survivors of the child welfare system. With her various experiences, Sophie looks forward to taking on an advocacy role in support of child welfare survivors. In her free time, Sophie loves outdoor activities, crafting and art of all types, and doing puzzles!
Raphaël Cote (he/him)
Individual Advocate
Raph is a soon to be social worker. He has graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in sociology, and is now aspiring to complete his MSW at Carleton University. He has spent numerous hours working with and around children (aged 3-12), as a preschool educator, supervisor, and guardian. He has also spent time working as a youth soccer coach for aspiring athletes, and as an athlete himself, he has helped them build necessary assets to develop their teamwork skills. Raphaël will also be working at local community services centres in Montréal over the summer, where he hopes to sharpen his social work abilities. Raphaël was a placement student at CCWS since January 2023, where he aided the team in individual advocacy cases, as well as helping developing youth spaces. He is hoping to continue to contribute to Black communities by supporting the indispensable work done at CCWS.
Christianne Labelle (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Christianne is a soon to be law graduate who has spent her time in law school working in legal clinics assisting people with low-to-no income to resolve housing and Disability matters at tribunals. Christianne also spent time working with student groups to support radical grassroots movements such as 1492 Landback Lane. She is a passionate advocate for those who have their human rights continuously denied to them by the state, including children and people experiencing housing insecurity.
Heaven Teklehaymanot (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Heaven works front-line providing care, resources, referrals and support for maintaining long-term stability while transitioning through challenging and complex phases of life with unhoused, low-income and recently housed individuals and families. Heaven centres compassion, empathy and genuine partnerships with those who she cares for in her personal and professional life, and imagines and works towards a world where abolition is actualized and inequities are diminished. Advocating and supporting people involved in and impacted by the child welfare system is extremely important to Heaven as she aims to minimize the power that the system has on disrupting family and community relationships. In addition, Heaven is hoping to pursue a graduate degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy in the near future in order to provide anti-colonial, community-based, trauma-informed care to unhoused and low-income Black, Indigenous & racialized people who are disproportionately harmed by various systems, institutions and people.
Johnny Stavrou (he/him)
Individual Advocate
Johnny is a queer, disabled, mad white person and child welfare survivor with a long history of traumatic institutionalization through the family policing system. After being apprehended at the age of 2, he predominantly lived in foster home environments up until the age of seven before he was made to live in 20+ group homes for the remainder of his childhood. Despite the traumatic nature of his childhood, Johnny has grown into a relentless social advocate who applies a trauma informed lens towards his advocacy skills. Johnny has a particular interest in advocating on behalf of folxs who suffer from mental health disabilities and are confined within institutional settings such as group homes, correctional facilities, and more. Johnny completed high school despite the violence and displacement caused by the system, and went on to graduate from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology for a Bachelor’s degree in legal studies with a specialization in human rights law. After that, he attended Durham College obtaining a certificate in pre-health sciences and a diploma in paramedic. At the present moment, Johnny is a primary care paramedic working within the City of Toronto whereby he brings his experience of trauma and disability directly to the frontlines of emergency response. Additionally, he is pursuing a post-graduate diploma in paralegal studies at Centennial College and wishes to become a lawyer when the time is right.
We’re always looking for new members
Interested in being part of a team? We’re accepting applications for volunteers and placement students on a rolling basis.
Meet The Team
Josh Lamers (he/they)
Executive Lead
josh@collectiveofcws.ca
Executive Lead
Josh is one of the co-creators of CCWS and is a core member and the Executive Lead of CCWS. Josh is a Black queer gender nonconforming, disabled mad community organizer and child welfare survivor/abolitionist. Josh spent the first 3.5 years of his life in and out of foster care in rural Ontario until experiencing further racial displacement in adoption to a white home in another predominantly white rural town. Josh’s community and academic work centres the intersections of Blackness, Disability and madness, child welfare survivorship, queerness and transness. Josh is the co-creator of various Black radical spaces that organize against anti-Black racism in institutions like post-secondary education. Josh’s award-winning research centres the abolition of child welfare through the experiences of Black child welfare survivors and families.
Josh has his Bachelor and Master of Social Work from Toronto Metropolitan University University, his Juris Doctor from University of Windsor, and is currently doing his Ph.D. at Osgoode Hall Law, York University. Josh’s doctoral autoethnographic research focuses on the question of whether the experiences and outcomes of the legal adoption of Black children into white families reflect the paramount purpose of the Child, Youth, and Family Services Act, 2017 with respect to promoting the best interests, protection and well-being.
Ashley Ash (she/her)
Core Member
ashley@collectiveofcws.ca
Core Member
Ashley Ash (she/her) is Indian and spent the first 12 years of her life with the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto before being made a Crown Ward. Shortly after she went through a racial displacement through adoption into a white family. Ashley has spoken at numerous speaking engagements to young people involved in adoption, adoptive parents, adoption workers, social workers and lawyers and judges involved in child welfare.
She currently holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Toronto Metropolitan University and a Juris Doctor from the University of Windsor, Faculty of Law. Ashley also worked at various organizations such as the Office of the Ontario Child Advocate, speciality legal aid clinics, and she is also a national-award winning writer who uses her prose to communicate the messages important to her and her community.
Thaila Dixon-Eeet (they/them)
Community Development & Outreach Coordinator
thaila@collectiveofcws.ca
Community Development & Outreach Coordinator
Thaila is one of the co-creators of CCWS and our Community Development and Outreach Coordinator. Thaila is a Black queer non-binary neurodivergent mad child welfare survivor and abolitionist, of Jamaican ethnic background mixed with white on their mother’s side. Thaila was placed in group homes beginning at the age of 13, was in semi-independent living and then independent living at the age of 16 until they aged out at 21 years old. Since the age of 15, Thaila’s advocated for changes within the child welfare system as a youth at the Office of the Ontario Child Advocate. With their own experiences of the various forms of violence that occur towards Black girls in group homes, Thaila’s advocacy lead to benefits for child welfare survivors generally, such as creation of the HSBC Fund through the Children’s Aid Foundation.
Thaila was the Director of Youth Engagement at Cross Over Youth, while also doing case management where they supported child welfare survivors dealing with the criminal punishment system. Thaila is also an entrepreneur within the tattoo industry, marrying their social justice work with tattooing and co-founding the Rose Underground, which is a collective of BIPOC tattoo artists addressing anti-Black racism and other forms of oppression in the industry. Thaila extended this work into opening their own shop with other BIPOC tattoo artists in downtown Toronto called TruTattoo Shop.
Kaito Kuwahara (they/them)
Social Media Coordinator
Social Media Coordinator
Kaito is a queer transmasculine person of colour and settler living in Tkaronto. As someone positioned at the intersections of oppression and privilege, Kaito is passionately committed to supporting and empowering child welfare survivors through anti-racist, decolonial, and trauma-informed justice work. They believe in virtual outreach that is inclusive, accessible, intentional, and motivated by critical thinking. Kaito holds a Social Service Work Diploma from Seneca College and a Bachelor of Social Work from Lakehead University. They will soon be starting their Master of Social Work at Renison University College. Kaito’s personal and professional goal is to recognize the past and ongoing harms of social work(ers) on marginalized communities as a way to actively disrupt the various social and systemic barriers that people continue to experience here on Turtle Island, or what is colonially named “Canada”.
Jordan Lentinello (she/her)
Research & Education Coordinator
Research & Education Coordinator
Jordan is a second-generation Jamaican-Bajan, Black Canadian. She was born in Toronto and grew up in Mississauga before attending McMaster university. She completed her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Masters of Art in Global Politics in the years following. Her work experience includes project coordination, advocacy, and committee work. She has spoken at the Canadian Association for the Prevention of Discrimination and Harassment in Higher Education and other higher education equity events. Jordan’s paternal familiar history with child welfare drives her interest in her working with CCWS. Jordan’s wider research focuses on anti-Black racism on a transnational scale, as well as domestically, often exploring ways an anti-oppressive practice framework can challenge and dismantle such. Her work is informed by and honors Black Feminist theory.
Camila Hernandez (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Camila is a queer Chilena currently living in Tkaronto after being raised in the traditional territories of the Erie, Neutral, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Mississaugas/The City of Hamilton. Growing up in a white, middle-class neighbourhood as a racialized immigrant woman was instrumental in creating the basis of her values, ethics and the importance of accessible community spaces. Being one of a few racialized people in a white classroom made her keenly aware of race and class, how that influences one’s opportunities and how one is perceived. This has guided her in fighting for queer equity, racial justice, dismantling state violence and working towards abolition and liberation.
She is a lover of rowing on the water, bike rides, and creating anything with her hands. A multidisciplinary creative formally trained in the arts, Camila hopes to eventually use her love and knowledge of creating to help those on healing journeys to connect to both their mind and body.
Sophie Wirzba (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Sophie is a 2021 graduate of McGill University where she studied Political Science and International Development, focusing on relationships between people and the environment and social policy. Sophie currently works in sustainability consulting, aiming to mitigate negative impacts of environmental projects on marginalized communities.
Over summer 2020 and summer 2021, Sophie worked as an online camp counsellor for the Tim Hortons Children’s Foundation where several of her campers and coworkers were survivors of the child welfare system. With her various experiences, Sophie looks forward to taking on an advocacy role in support of child welfare survivors. In her free time, Sophie loves outdoor activities, crafting and art of all types, and doing puzzles!
Raphaël Cote (he/him)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Raphaël Cote (he/him): Raph is a soon to be social worker. He has graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in sociology, and is now aspiring to complete his MSW at Carleton University. He has spent numerous hours working with and around children (aged 3-12), as a preschool educator, supervisor, and guardian. He has also spent time working as a youth soccer coach for aspiring athletes, and as an athlete himself, he has helped them build necessary assets to develop their teamwork skills. Raphaël will also be working at local community services centres in Montréal over the summer, where he hopes to sharpen his social work abilities.
Raphaël was a placement student at CCWS since January 2023, where he aided the team in individual advocacy cases, as well as helping developing youth spaces. He is hoping to continue to contribute to Black communities by supporting the indispensable work done at CCWS.
Christianne Labelle (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Christianne is a soon to be law graduate who has spent her time in law school working in legal clinics assisting people with low-to-no income to resolve housing and Disability matters at tribunals. Christianne also spent time working with student groups to support radical grassroots movements such as 1492 Landback Lane. She is a passionate advocate for those who have their human rights continuously denied to them by the state, including children and people experiencing housing insecurity.
Heaven Teklehaymanot (she/her)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Heaven works front-line providing care, resources, referrals and support for maintaining long-term stability while transitioning through challenging and complex phases of life with unhoused, low-income and recently housed individuals and families. Heaven centres compassion, empathy and genuine partnerships with those who she cares for in her personal and professional life, and imagines and works towards a world where abolition is actualized and inequities are diminished. Advocating and supporting people involved in and impacted by the child welfare system is extremely important to Heaven as she aims to minimize the power that the system has on disrupting family and community relationships.
In addition, Heaven is hoping to pursue a graduate degree in Counselling and Psychotherapy in the near future in order to provide anti-colonial, community-based, trauma-informed care to unhoused and low-income Black, Indigenous & racialized people who are disproportionately harmed by various systems, institutions and people.
Johnny Stavrou (he/him)
Individual Advocate
Individual Advocate
Johnny is a queer, disabled, mad white person and child welfare survivor with a long history of traumatic institutionalization through the family policing system. After being apprehended at the age of 2, he predominantly lived in foster home environments up until the age of seven before he was made to live in 20+ group homes for the remainder of his childhood. Despite the traumatic nature of his childhood, Johnny has grown into a relentless social advocate who applies a trauma informed lens towards his advocacy skills.
Johnny has a particular interest in advocating on behalf of folxs who suffer from mental health disabilities and are confined within institutional settings such as group homes, correctional facilities, and more. Johnny completed high school despite the violence and displacement caused by the system, and went on to graduate from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology for a Bachelor’s degree in legal studies with a specialization in human rights law. After that, he attended Durham College obtaining a certificate in pre-health sciences and a diploma in paramedic.
At the present moment, Johnny is a primary care paramedic working within the City of Toronto whereby he brings his experience of trauma and disability directly to the frontlines of emergency response. Additionally, he is pursuing a post-graduate diploma in paralegal studies at Centennial College and wishes to become a lawyer when the time is right.
