Program Officer (Social Work, BSW)

Olivia Condlln-Wilby, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

By Ayse Aras, Career Centre Peer

Olivia Condlln-Wilby, a Bachelor of Social Work graduate from the Laurier Brantford campus, initially planned to pursue a career in higher education and even enrolled in a master's program focused on student services and development. However, a summer role as a Business Development Officer with the Brain Injury Association of Peel and Halton sparked her passion for the non-profit sector, where she feels she can make a meaningful contribution to a valuable social cause. This experience inspired Olivia to pursue a certificate in Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Oliva explains that the skills she was able to develop in her time with the Brain Injury Association led her to a Program Coordinator role with Addictions and Mental Health Ontario, a non-profit organization that represents other organizations that provide front-line services and support for substance use, addiction, and mental health across the province. At this job, Olivia had the chance to build experiences such as program development, coordination, and professional communication, helping her to land her current position as a Program Officer with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).

Olivia's work is in the Research Services sector, in a hospital, where Olivia supports the ongoing research projects happening at CAMH. An example of an exciting research initiative Olivia supports is the Toronto Adolescent & Youth Cohort Study, a 5-year research study designed to better understand mental health risk factors among adolescents and youth. Olivia oversees the onboarding for research trainees across various labs and hospital sites, and she develops and facilitates a Community of Practice, which involves coordinating monthly webinars, a website with resources, and monitoring a discussion forum. The goal of the Community of Practice is to support research managers and administrators who are responsible for registering and overseeing research trainees, and to improve the quality of registration submissions every month. Olivia also works on quality improvement initiatives such as auditing payroll records for accuracy and completeness and updating registration forms, policies, and procedures to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the registration process. While the role is focused on administration, versus a traditional client/patient-facing social work role, her position still offers a rich opportunity to learn about psychology, biology and mental health while making a meaningful impact on people’s lives.

One challenge working in non-profit organizations is that they can often be underfunded and therefore understaffed, which causes for workers to take on multiple roles, creating more demanding work. Since many people are aware of this issue in the non-profit sector, Olivia says that this can make it more difficult to get new hires, as the demands of these positions may not be appealing to everyone. This problem is often more common with smaller non-profit organizations than large ones such as CAMH.

What Olivia enjoys most about her current role is the ability to have the independence to work on projects at her own pace. This requires one to be very self-driven, attentive to detail, organized and remain calm under pressure. For example, there are times when Olivia is processing registration for 450+ research trainees, therefore efficiency is key to ensuring that the administrative process doesn’t delay research study timelines and individual students’ ability to start work and get paid.

For students interested in non-profit administration roles, Olivia encourages getting involved in extracurricular clubs with a social purpose and volunteering with non-profit organizations to build relevant skills and expand your network in the sector. She also suggests reflecting on the social issues that matter most to you and researching organizations aligned with those causes. “You never know what experience is going to be the one that stands out to an employer,” she says. Rather than having a specific dream job in mind, Olivia embraced all opportunities that came her way. This mindset is what allowed her to find her path!