Meet Michele Finney

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Michele Finney a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Michele, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

When it comes to resilence, for me it came in phases. Growing up, my mom was tough. She immigrated to Cananda before I was born and learned very quickly how to build from the ground up. That meant finding a job where she can support her family, fighting against the odds, and making sacrifices. I’ve learned so much from her and I will forever be thankful. But as a mother, my kids have also taught me resilience as well. Being a mom, it has given me strength that I didn’t know existed. Especially when it comes to finding my voice and speaking up.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Hi! My name is Michele and I’m the Director of Program Development at FOOTPRINTS 4 Autism in Durham ON. I started working with children with autism in 2012 and I enjoy every minute of it. My line of work, I get to collaborate and meet so many different people and hear their stories. I don’t take for granted the wonderful families and children I meet in my line of work. They teach me about compassion and advocacy and the true meaning of inclusivity and acceptance. I have a wonderful team that I get to work with. They are an amazing set of people who also bring that passion to our program and make it their mission to put a smile on our clients faces and make them feel loved and accepted.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

The three qualities that impacted my journey was patience, hardwork and doing the actual work, and kindness.

Patience- during my journey I wanted my goals to happen right now. I would doubt myself as to why it wasn’t happening. But I learned to remind myself that the answer is coming and to be patient. The answers are not now, but wait a little longer. Either something better is coming or what I asked for will happen.

Hardwork and doing the actual work – I learnt that you can’t just ask for it and it will appear. You ask for it and do the actual work- hard work does pay off in the end.

Kindness- I remember working at McDonald’s as a manager and the one criticism they would always have is “you’re too nice” or “you need to be harder and more mean to the employees” but that’s not who I am. Years later, I would run into old employees and they would always say, you were really nice to me. And that’s what I want to be remembered as, someone who was kind. Same thing I’m teaching my kids. Be kind.

How can folks who want to work with you connect?

Im also looking to connect with like-minded individuals! If you’re in the field of social work – specifically working with individuals with autism please send me an email! michele@footprints4autism.org.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.footprints4autism.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/footprints4autism?igsh=OGZqaTM3ODViMzF4