Children's Aid Society Toronto first Black manager Leyland Gudge cared about young people
Leyland Gudge, who was Children’s Aid Society (CAS) Toronto first Black manager and a co-founder of Ontario’s first Black Child & Family Services, has passed away.
Born in Guyana in 1948, he was a member of the People’s National Congress (PNC) Young Socialist Movement, the YMCA Executive Director, a founding member of the Trade Union Youth Movement and one of the first Critchlow Labour College graduates.
In the early 1970s, Gudge completed Humber’s College’s three-year Journalism & Public Relations program and returned to Guyana to serve as a Special Correspondent with the PNC’s ‘New Nation’ newspaper before returning to Canada to work with Toronto YMCA before becoming its St. Clair-Oakwood area Multicultural Centre Executive Director in 1978.
In that role, he was responsible for the design, development and delivery of recreational, educational and social programs and for piloting multiracial and multilingual programs for the growing Caribbean community in the area.
Joining CAS Toronto in 1979 as a Family Services/Community Worker with Caribbean families in the city’s west end, Gudge was appointed four years later Executive Assistant with responsibility for Multicultural programming that was the first in a mainstream social service institution aimed at enhancing CAS’s service delivery to Toronto’s growing culturally diverse communities.
He also served as the CAS Toronto Public Relations Manager before his secondment in 1988 to the defunct Harambee Child & Family Services founded to promote healing and the well being of Black families through culturally focussed services. It was the province’s first Black Child & Family Services.
“Leyland was our go-to person when it came to information, policies and practices in terms of how Children’s Aid Society assessed, activated and adopted our children,” said Justice of the Peace Odida Quamina. “That particular role led to the formation of Harambee whose specific mandate was to offer an alternative to Children’s Aid Society.”
From 1990 to 1994, Gudge was Director of St. Clair Community Youth Services that served mainly Black youths in Toronto’s west end.
He also designed and implemented school-based programs to support Black and Caribbean students in the Greater Toronto Area and was an independent consultant providing organizational direction and strategic program development expertise to community-based and mainstream organizations in Ontario.
Gudge, who in 1998 established the first federally funded community-based youth employment program for challenged youths, was an adviser and consultant for the life skills employment program administered by the Word of Truth Family Centre. Supported by the federal government, the program helped new immigrants and young unemployed Canadians secure useful career information, develop marketable skills, find suitable jobs and remain employed.
Geraldine Browne-Wade, a pastor at Purpose Church that was Word of Life, said Gudge’s commitment to young people was par excellence.
“Leyland was instrumental in writing the grant proposal and designing the program,” she said. “He also didn’t pick up the phone to communicate with school principals and superintendents when it came to addressing students’ issues. He would accompany the parent and student to the school and talk with the administrators to find a solution. He interpreted language so there was mediation.”
Gudge, who received his undergraduate degree in Social Work from York University in 1994 and his Master’s two years later from the University of Toronto, was a member of Child & Family Services Review Board and the Ontario Association of Social Workers, Vice-Chair of the Toronto Caribbean Carnival and a founding member of Toronto Police Black Community Consultative Committee.
The founder of Cleo Community Services Consultancy was also a Project Consultant with Elevated Grounds Inc. and a consultant to the Durham CAS Executive Director.
The multicultural consultant is survived by his wife, Claudette Joseph, and three children.
“Leyland cared a lot about young people and was always there to support them and their families,” said his widow. “He gave so much of his time without cost. Volunteering was his passion and he was out there giving of himself to the end, even though he was sick and we were in the middle of a pandemic.”
Leyland Gudge (extreme right) cared about young people (Photo by Ron Fanfair)
Gudge’s viewing takes place on Thursday, May 12 at Covenant Funeral Home, 2505 Eglinton Ave. E from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. The funeral service is on Saturday, May 14 at 10 a.m. at St. Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church, 14 Highgate Dr. in Markham.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Children’s Aid Foundation of Canada and Autism Speaks Canada.
