Making the leap to education

Kristin Garrity had 12 years of experience in child and youth care before graduating from Ryerson, working with young people from all walks of life. She can work in practically any room, and with practically any youth—but she wasn’t sure if she could survive in university.

“I was really scared,” says Garrity. “I didn’t think I was going to get in, which is why it took me 10 years to apply. I also didn’t know if I would be smart enough do it. I knew I was smart—I could go into any agency and work for them—but I didn’t know if I could do the book work versus the hands-on work like in college.”

So, when she enrolled in the Child and Youth Care bachelor of arts stream through The Chang School of Continuing Education, she arrived with a unique strategy: find the two hardest courses, and either sink or swim. “I figured if I can’t do them, I should find out sooner rather than later! I remember the Social Research Methods teacher said, ‘Is this anybody’s first class?’ and I was the only one who raised my hand.”

She survived those courses, and thrived. On October 18, Kristin Garrity received the Founder’s Scholarship at The Chang School’s annual Leaders in Learning Awards—recognition of “a part-time degree student who has demonstrated academic excellence and who has made an outstanding contribution to Ryerson and the community at large.” The Leaders in Learning Awards celebrate outstanding learners in continuing education, and this year included 60 award recipients from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines.

Much of her career has been spent in residential treatment centres, working with youth with extreme anxiety, oppositional defiant disorder, and self-harm. Early in her career, “I worked with youth 16 to 21. There were seven beds in a residence where you were single-staffed… so I wasn’t much older than them. I had to learn skills really quickly.” How did she acquire those skills? “I have a brutal honesty,” she says. “I don’t know why it works for me, and I doubt that it would work for anybody else. But there have been maybe three kids in my entire career that I haven’t been able to connect to.”

Over time, she graduated college, and made the leap to Ryerson after reaching a ceiling in her career. Her fears about higher-education quickly faded. “I’ve excelled in ways I didn’t know I could, and I’ve made relationships with people. I love the teachers. I’m the oldest one in a lot of those classes—I just don’t look it. They think I’m 27, and I don’t correct them!”

Looking ahead, she hopes to one day teach child and youth care. In the immediate future, she has just accepted a position at Southlake Regional Health Centre, working with adolescents in a day program. “I gave up five years’ seniority for a six-month contract at the hospital, and it was the scariest leap of faith in my life,” she says. “I gave up seniority, I gave up benefits, I gave up everything, and I just went for it. I helped them revamp their program here. I worked very hard, I gave it everything I had, and they just offered me the permanent position last week, which is the highest you can go with the education I currently have.”

Like so many Chang School students, Garrity has coped with a difficult work-life balance. Through it all, she has been motivated through all the 70-hour work weeks by her son, who is now in Grade 12. “I just kept my word to my son, always. When my son was little, he would say, ‘Why do you have to do homework?’ And I said, ‘Because I’m going to buy you a house.’ So I bought a house when I was 25, because I told my son for three years straight that I was going to buy him a house.

“I always showed him that hard work can pay off, because I worked hard. Now he’s in his last year of high school, and I got called in for a meeting at the end of last year. They said, ‘We know you’re a student,’ and I said, ‘Oh, how did you know that?’ They said, ‘Your son is so proud of you, he tells everybody about what you do.’ I was shocked, and I was honoured that he wanted to tell people about what I’m doing.”