Why did I choose to be a child and youth therapist?

March is my birthday month, so I thought I’d share something about myself in this month’s blog!

I want to take you on a road trip, back in time to how I became a therapist specializing in working with children, teens, and young adults. 

Ready?…. let’s go back to the early 2000s…

I was in high school volunteering weekly at a rehab facility in Toronto now called Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab. I was involved in the Therapeutic Recreation program with the adolescents, teens, and the critical care unit. It was such an eye-opening experience on how you can bring joy for a short time to a child, who may have been living in a hospital for long periods or can’t communicate with their words because of their disability. It created patience and inspiration that I didn’t know would impact and translate to my future career. 

In my early 20s, I worked for the City of Toronto as a camp counsellor for their adapted camps and then was promoted to program director, creating the program and running one of the camp locations. For those five years I was involved with the youth camps, I worked with all different kids who were special needs and had a variety of strengths and challenges. They all needed support in some manner- whether it was changing them in and out of their clothes, holding them in the pool, feeding them their meals, or overall keeping them safe when engaging in camp activities. This job pushed me. I had to get creative in my communication and activities, lean on my colleagues for support, and give these kids an opportunity to just BE KIDS! To this day, I still think of some of my campers and hope they are doing well. 

After a few detours along the way with different education choices and life lessons, I had a placement that landed me a job for almost 10 years at a male youth homeless shelter. This job was the most impactful in opening my eyes to the realities of the world, meeting people from all over, and listening to their stories. I learned a lot at this job from my colleagues and the clients. This job continued to shape me. 

Flash forward to when I started in psychotherapy, I got a job that gave me the opportunity to provide counselling to those under 18 years old. When I was completing my Master’s placement, I was only working with adults, so I had to rely on the skills I had from my years at Bloorview, the camps, and the shelter, to just be present and personable with the kids coming to therapy. Within the first six months of this job, I knew I had to make a change. I was doing training and workshops for working with both children and adults and was finding it overwhelming. So I made the decision that only made the most sense: going forward, I’m just going to focus on children, youth, and young adults! 

For almost 20 years, I’ve been given opportunities to work with various young people in different settings and provide them with the space to be themselves and feel supported.

So if you are looking for a therapist for your child or teen or you are a young person looking to talk to someone, I hope my background and life experiences can help you understand how much I enjoy working with YOU.