Leslie’s career in education and social services spans more than 30 years, in both Alberta and BC. During that time, Leslie’s roles included coach, teacher, counsellor, board member, professor, and community leader. She believes that everyone has strengths and gifts to bring to communities and in the value of lifelong learning.
Provincially, Leslie was part of a team that wrote the BC Foster Parent Education Curriculum, served on the BC Parent Visioning Working Group, and the Vancouver Island Child Welfare Advisory Committee.
Leslie is committed to working with others to bring community-based social services together in finding innovative ways to meet the increasingly complex needs in community and to build upon the strengths of people in the community. As a result, she is part of the organizing committee of the local Community Boards in Action initiative in Duncan that brings board directors and senior staff together with business and local government sectors in dialogue about social and economic challenges, and opportunities facing citizens in the Cowichan region.
As a director of Board Voice, Leslie serves on the Advocacy Committee, and worked with communities across BC to produce There is a Better Way: A BC Framework for Wellbeing. She has presented to a number of organizations and written opinion pieces in the Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, and regional newspapers on the need for common principles to guide policy development.
Leslie also serves on Board Voice’s Membership Committee. Currently, she is involved in working with other board directors and senior staff in developing the Building Better Boards initiative focused on strengthening and bringing together the volunteer boards that govern B.C.’s community social service organizations.
In retirement, Leslie is an active community volunteer, serving as Board Chair at Clements Centre for Families, facilitator for the Cowichan Early Years Table, and as Co-Chair of Board Voice, which she joined in 2012.