Who is Helen Walling?
- Helen Walling
- Jul 10
- 11 min read
As executive director of Momentum 2.0, I am so excited to be sharing some information on myself and my vision for this burgeoning organization. As mentioned in the previous blog, Momentum 2.0 is a very young non-profit organization that is not yet a year old. However, although Momentum 2.0 is very young, those behind it have a wealth of education, experience, and knowledge working in community development.
My interest in helping others is nothing new, starting way back in 1977, when I took what was at a time a Certified Nursing Assistant course at St. Patrick’s high school in Quebec City. In 1980, I graduated from the program, but never practiced; although I was looking for the human connection, nursing ended up not being my way of doing it. Indeed, at the time, in nursing, the work was very prescribed; there was work to be done and not a lot of flex time to be with the patients, to talk with them, to learn and share, and to get to understand them. Overall, it was a wonderful experience, since we had internships that took us across various departments of the Jeffery Hale Hospital, we practiced on the obstetrics, surgery, and pediatrics wards, and also spent time at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Québec (previously known as the Centre Robert-Giffard). We even experience autopsies in the morgue. All this was an eye-opening experience at the ages of 16-17 years old of which I am grateful for.
After leaving high school, I went on a different path than some of my girlfriends who where with me in the nursing program, since many continued nursing, at least for a while. I went to CEGEP- St. Lawrence, which started my journey to lifelong learning. The 2 years I spent in the social sciences program opened my eyes to the possibilities in the field. I had amazing teachers, one of whom was Mary Roberston (sociology), and who is a main reason why I ended up doing my PhD on understanding gender stereotypes and their impacts on women.
In 1982, I headed out to Fredericton New Brunswick and went to St. Thomas University to study social work and political science. My social work courses required me to acquire volunteer experience, which was my initiation to volunteering and has been a core aspect of who I am today. Indeed, there has not been a time since then that I have not volunteered; examples include the Fredericton’s men shelter, the Fredericton Rape Crisis Center (FRCC), vice-presidency and presidency of Voice of English-speaking Quebec (VEQ), VEQ’s Fall Fest committee, president of the Community Christmas Hampers Campaign, member of the Quebec City Health Board, member of the executive committee of the Quebec Community Group Network (QCGN), member of la Commission de la Capital National, where I had the pleasure of working on the first phase of the beautiful Samuel de Champlain Boardwalk in Québec City, board member and president of SNACS Entrepreneur for youth with special needs, which I’m still active on, and 3 years with Champlain Regional College and another 3 with St. Lawrence’s board of governors. The majority of my volunteer experiences were valorizing and excellent learning experiences. My experience at SLC-CRC will be discussed in another blog concerning Governance and what improper governance can look like.
The first of these volunteer experiences was at the Fredericton men's shelter. My role was making sure that the clients had their basic needs regarding personal care, meals, and sleeping arrangements. That was an eye-opening experience as to things I took for granted, such as having the possibility of showering everyday /basic health. After the year with the shelter, I moved on to become very engaged with the Fredericton Rape Crisis Center. Being the 1980s, stereotypes and blame on young women who were raped were commonplace and something we were constantly fighting against. The center was an important learning and growth experience for me. I learned about feminism, power/control dynamics, and the impact that power has in the hands of men (doctors, police officers, etc.). We were about 12 Board members and 1 or 2 staff. We were a crisis center responding to the needs of our clients - 24/7. We covered the entire province of New Brunswick, since we were the only Crisis center in New Brunswick. Being one of the only bilingual volunteers, and New Brunswick being a bilingual province, I was on call most of the time. At the center, we also dealt with incest and domestic violence cases, which we were referred to the Transition House. Additionally, we organized the “take back the night” march, whose objectives was to inform and educate citizens about the fear that women have walking alone at night, and we offered training for women to be able to protect themselves. During the 6 years I was involved with Fredericton Rape Crisis Center, I acted as a volunteer, a board member, and president. This was the organization where I learned about advocacy and how critical it is to assist in creating change.
After graduation from St. Thomas University, I took the experience that I had previously acquired as a tour guide in Québec City (summer job) and, at the age of 25, started my own bus tour company in Fredericton, called Capital City tours. With the support of my family, I bought a 15-passenger van and offered tours of Fredericton. I had done my research and had the opportunity of hiring a summer student who was passionate about her city and gave amazing tours. I did that for three or four Summers.
My time in Fredericton taught me so much that I would bring to Québec with me when I moved back in 1989 due to my parents and my own undiagnosed health issues. Upon my return, I was hired at the Heart and Stroke Foundation as Regional Coordinator for the greater Quebec area, an area covering Charlevoix, the Beauce, Québec City, and Portneuf. I remained in that position for 10 years, managing a small team devoted to developing fundraising initiatives and educational programming to support the mission of the Foundation. The core of my work at the Foundation was managing volunteers who would lead numerous fundraising activities, from organized walks and bowling events to filling the château Frontenac’s ballroom for talks by local personalities. All of these were organized with numerous volunteer committees deciding what activities they wanted to do to fundraise for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Our team (Board, committees, staff) did so well that we won the As de Coeur award for a few years in a row for the region who surpassed its objectives in Quebec.
First picture, our small office space at the Heart and Stroke Foundation; Second picture, me receiving my first As de Coeur award from the Foundation; Third picture, my second As de Coeur award; Fourth picture, a newspaper article in the Journal de Québec highlighting our fundraising campaign during my last year at the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
During those 10 years, thanks to the training and support I received from the Foundation, notably highlighting the importance of ensuring that each volunteer is empowered and respected, I increased the number of active volunteers in my territory from about 50 to over 500. This remains to this day, one my proudest professional achievements. This also led to a substantial increase in fundraising for the Foundation. During my decade at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, one story in particular has remained with me (some thirty years later now) about the value of being present, receptive, and respectful:
An older lady came into our office to make a donation. At that time, we were 2 employees. She wanted to speak to the person responsible for the organization, which was me. She came into my tiny office and wanted to make a $1 donation. She asked numerous questions about where the money goes, how do the researchers receive their funds, do we follow up to make sure the funds are well spent. At the time being young, I didn't understand why she needed to ask all these questions, especially for a $1 donation, nor why she wanted or needed to speak to me specifically. After about 30 minutes of discussing how the foundation operates and uses its donations, she donated her $1 and left. Two months later, she returned, asking again to talk to me and wanting to give $1 or $2 (I can’t remember which). This second time didn’t take as long, maybe 15 minutes, once again asking about how the money would be used, before she was once again on her way. I still wondered why someone would spend so much time for so little money when they could just have mailed it in or dropped it off (yes, at the time we received a ton of donations through the mail). She did not return for many more months when, around 6-months after her first visit and donation, she reached out and asked to meet me, ensuring that I would be at the office. When I met her, she presented me with a $30,000 cheque, the equivalent of around $75,000 in 2025; an amazing gesture of generosity. She told me she appreciated being treated well and like she meant something, regardless of the amount of her donation. As someone who dressed plainly, she was thankful that she wasn’t judged based on her age or clothing and she reinforced in me the importance of not judging anyone. Be patient, polite, kind, and respectful.
After leaving the Heart and Stroke Foundation in 1999, my journey took me to Voice of English-speaking Quebec (VEQ), a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting Québec City’s English-speaking population, where I was hired as Executive Director. During the first few months at VEQ, I started my return to school to be better at my job and took my Canadian Society of Association Executives courses focused on equipping executive directors to manage themselves, their employees, and their board members. At the time, VEQ had a sizeable board of directors made up of 21 members. Fortunately, I had great presidents, one in particular being Bob Donnelly, my past English teacher at CEGEP and a family friend. While at VEQ, I particularly enjoyed the advocacy piece of the job, upholding the rights of the minority language community. I’m also very proud of having started the Newcomers program with a project grant from Canadian Heritage (PCH), which to this day remains a core program of VEQ. What I learned at VEQ was the art of working with large boards. Having learned from my experience at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, if you have volunteers that want to help, get them doing something they like and are interested in. As such, we decided to create different board committees, and the volunteers learned and shared their experience. Doing this, we had a very active advocacy committee with both Bob and Bill Donnelly. We were able with the support of the Board to ensure that an English-speaking school that was going to be closed remained open for the military students in Shannon and that the government built an addition to school. We also organized a wonderful event for Québec’s 400th anniversary, where we had over 700 people participate in a wonderful and fun evening with André-Philippe Gagnon.
First picture, meeting with Graham Fraser, Commissioner of Official Languages; Second picture, meeting with mayoral candidate Régis Labeaume (before his tenure as mayor of Québec); Third picture, celebration of Québec's 400th at the Québec Convention Center, including featured speeches by mayor Régis Labeaume, Canada's Auditor General Sheila Fraser, and an unforgettable performance by André-Philippe Gagnon.
While at VEQ I continued honing my project management skills. Between 2003 and 2005, I pursued my Master’s in Applied Systems Intervention, learning to better support people and organizations. I learned a lot on team dynamics, conflict resolution, ethics, personality styles, and much more. I did my thesis on the importance of visioning. I learned that with or without a vision, our life will move forward. However, if you want to reach a specific "destination", a Visioning Plan is essential. This is appropriate for individuals as well as organizations. This knowledge on visioning has stayed with me and I continue to incorporate it to this day when assisting organizations in their strategic planning processes. After finishing my Master’s in 2005, already 20 years ago, I became a process consultant, focusing on how things are done (the process) versus dictating how they should be done, as many consultants do. In January 2006, while still at VEQ, I felt that I needed more knowledge about how to specifically help people move forward and get work done, so I began my training with the International Coaching Federation to become a certified business and life coach, which I became in 2008.
After completing my coaching certificates and with the help of my own coach Jery Winstrom, I left VEQ in 2008 and started my own business basically doing consulting/ coaching work for community organizations in the province of Quebec, as well as women middle managers in the health system. At that time, coaching was new and colleagues and friends would often ask me what sport am I coaching? I would have to explain to them what coaching was, the benefits, why its helpful! Now many have their own coaches or are becoming coaches themselves.
To continue my journey as a lifelong learning, in 2010, I started a PhD at Concordia University in the Specialized Individual Program. My focus was on women leadership, exploring confidence, agency, self-esteem, and burnout. I was deeply invested in understanding why so many of the women managers that I had been coaching went on burnout. This journey was amazing and difficult all at once. Through it, I also deepened my knowledge of change at both an individual and an organizational level. I learned how hard individual change is and what key ingredient must be present for success. I learned about the transition phases in a change process and how critical it is to understand them to transition successfully. I learned specifically about leadership styles and skills required to be a good and effective leader. In all, I read through thousands of articles on subjects ranging from gender stereotypes, the glass ceiling, healthy work environments, burnout, and much more. I might do a blog just on that!
Unfortunately, during those same years, I had to deal with my own transition and change process. I had had undiagnosed arthritis since I was 5 years old, at the time identified as growing pains, which took a turn for the worse. Although I have had many flares (harder periods) since I was young, since I had been very active doing gymnastics and playing basketball, doctors never took me or my pain seriously. Given that I never got the proper medical support, my condition deteriorated and by 48, barely able to walk anymore, I finally got a referral to an orthopedic (musculoskeletal) surgeon. When the surgeon looked at the X-rays of my knees, he seriously asked me to repeat my name to make sure that he was looking at the right patient. “Are you Mme Helen Walling?” I said yes. “You have the knees of a 75-year-old women”. I was 49 years old at the time. On July 10th, 2013, I got both my knees replaced; I had no choice but to do both simultaneously, given that neither knee would have been healthy enough to support the other while it was healing. That entire 3-year period pre and post operation were certainly crucial change periods. I had to relearn how to walk, how to live, and I had to be constantly reminded of my physical limitations, my boundaries, and to temper my expectations. I was grateful that I had my husband Richard and son Eric and wonderful family and friends. Clients were kind enough to come to the house for their coaching sessions. This was pre-Teams meetings and virtual meetings. Fortunately, I had my PhD to keep me sane during those very difficult & painful periods. During the healing journey, I also took an 8-week mindfulness course to help me better support myself and those around me, including my clients.
The decade following the surgery was a mix of healing, coaching and consulting, and learning through my PhD. During this time, I started working with my son Eric, I worked with hundreds of clients, and I had the opportunity of doing my PhD research with women from Quebec’s Health and Social Services System. More than 10 years after starting it, following a long medical leave, I finally finished my PhD in February of 2023 (for anyone interested, my thesis is linked at the bottom of this page). However, my PhD wasn’t delayed only because of my health. Another major life issue I faced was being mistreated as the Chair of our local English CEGEP (Champlain St-Lawrence), which I will detail in a future blog. This experience reinforced my appreciation of the critical importance of understanding roles and responsibilities as board members, and proper governance is impossible without this.
And now for the present, opening a new chapter as the executive director of Momentum 2.0. I am so excited and proud of this amazing opportunity to package everything I’ve learned over the years to make a positive difference in the lives of people and organizations. For those who haven’t read it, you can find our blog on what is Momentum 2.0 at the following link: https://www.momentum2-0.ca/post/inaugural-blog-what-is-momentum-2-0. We may be a young organization, but we have so much knowledge and lived experience, and we continue to learn, grow, and research each day.
Momentum 2.0 is taking off and I am so proud to be part of it!
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