Ms McGuire's tireless commitment and pioneering work in the sector over many years is being remembered and honoured as she becomes one of six people named to the 2020 ACT Honour Walk.

The award recognises those who have made significant and sustained contributions to Canberra and the region.

In 1963, Ms McGuire led a group of volunteers, who saw the need for a leading welfare organisation in the region, to establish the ACT Council of Social Service.

She was the founding secretary of ACTCOSS and was in the role for more than one decade while also working more than 20 years as director of ACT Welfare.

With a grant of 10 pounds from the National Council of Women ACT and the driving force of Ms McGuire and her peers, a provisional committee was set up to create a constitution.

The inaugural ACTCOSS meeting was held on July 30, 1963.

For an annual fee of two pounds, community organisations and government departments could become ACTCOSS members.

In 1976, Ms McGuire was awarded an MBE for her services.

Following her death in 2011 at 87 years old, an obituary in The Canberra Times described her as "forceful, articulate and ever a champion of the underdog".

"She played a major role in the establishment of community services including Marymead (family support services)," the obituary stated.

At the time, former ACTCOSS CEO Roslyn Dundas wrote to staff and the board, describing Ms McGuire as "a significant contributor to ACTCOSS" and that "we have lost a significant champion and passionate campaigner".

Ms McGuire's son, Justin McGuire, who attended the award ceremony in April, said her mother was "completely giving".

"Whether in a voluntary or professional capacity, her focus was on helping people," he said.

"It was all about making sure people who are doing it tough had a safety net.

"She transformed social welfare Canberra because the city back then was almost like a suburb of Melbourne.

"She used to go out at all hours of the day to help kids who were in peril because there weren't enough hours in the day."

Mr McGuire said many of the "big ticket items" that she achieved, including helping families adopt children and helping juveniles facing the courts, were through "her own force of will through obstruction from various channels".

"She set up all these systems that are still in place today," he said.

Mr McGuire said she was not scared of tapping people to tell them what needed to be done to help battlers in the community.

He said his mother "would have been quite proud" about the latest recognition.

"Although she wouldn't have shouted it from the rooftop. She would probably smile quietly to herself and move on because there was always something else to do," Mr McGuire said.

Former ACTCOSS president and 2018 ACT woman of the year Cathi Moore said Ms McGuire had been key in the development of social welfare and child welfare.

"I knew Ethel very well and was very fond of her. She was a feisty passionate woman," Ms Moore said.

"Ethel always had the needs of children and low-income people at the forefront of her work.

"She was a committed social activist and very active in the Catholic welfare scene."

To mark its 40th anniversary in 2003, the organisation published ACTCOSS: Building Bridges for 40 Years that features Ms McGuire's legacy.

Dr Louise Moran, the daughter of Jean Moran who co-founded ACTCOSS, said she had known Ms McGuire since she was a child then later as chairwoman of the Marymead board.

"I can thoroughly endorse Cathi's comments about Ethel," Dr Moran said.

"She was indeed feisty, passionate and determined. She was a one-woman whirlwind when it came to setting up proper social services in the ACT from the early fifties until her retirement in the 1980s."

Dr Moran said when her mother, who worked as a volunteer alongside Ms McGuire for some decades, was made the first life member of ACTCOSS in 2014, she said in her speech that the honour should have been given to Ms McGuire as the driving force behind the organisation.

"They both were," Dr Moran said.

Other 2020 ACT Honour Walk recipients include Lyall Gillespie, Klaus Moje, Ross Gengos, Tracey Whetnall and the Homosexual Law Reform Society of the ACT.

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