Clinician carries on mother's legacy at Holland Bloorview
By Louise Kinross
As a child, Carolyn McDougall made after-school visits to what was then the Hugh MacMillan Medical Centre to see her mom Vivien Harris, a nurse in our neuromuscular clinic. "I definitely felt part of the vibe of the hospital," she says. "I was inspired by the things I saw people doing as rehab professionals. It was an inclusive, friendly community," she says, recalling an event where staff roasted hot dogs on camp fires behind the units.
In 1992, after graduating from university, Carolyn began a number of admin jobs at Holland Bloorview, including working in the prosthetics and orthotics program, our spina bifida clinic, and in communications. She then left to pursue a degree and came back in 2006 as an occupational therapist in our life skills programs.
"In talking to our family facilitators, I learned families found a gap in supports to get their children involved in volunteer and work opportunities during high school," she says. "One of my projects in OT school was early work programs for young people with disabilities. That's when Robyn Sandford and I worked together to start Youth at Work," a program that offers teens work placements at Holland Bloorview with the support of a job coach.
Today Carolyn is project and strategy lead for Employment Pathways at Holland Bloorview, which runs several programs that support early work experiences for youth with disabilities.
"There's research demonstrating young people with disabilities are more likely to be involved in employment as an adult if they begin in high school," Carolyn says. "But there isn't a lot of funding directed at this time frame."
Carolyn is now focused on systems change, "working with people outside Holland Bloorview, not only in health care but in the education sector and with businesses and employment agencies and provincial and national organizations interested in youth employment."
She's particularly proud of her role in bringing Project SEARCH, an employment training program for high school students with intellectual disabilities, to Toronto in 2019. Project SEARCH began at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in 1996. In Toronto, the 10-month program is hosted by Holland Bloorview and UHN-Toronto Rehab, in partnership with Community Living Toronto and the Toronto District School Board. Each day is a mix of classroom learning and work placements in the hospitals. Carolyn is now working with communities in other parts of Ontario to foster its growth across the province.
Another recent highlight is an online resource hub for employers "that puts out the why and how of inclusion for youth with disabilities," Carolyn says.
It's a challenging field. "A lot of times you can't seem to bust down some of the barriers," she says. "There are a lot of challenges in the way the system works, or doesn't work, for people, and even with all the willingness in the world you can't always make change with or for anyone in particular. There isn't a magic wand. It's a lot of hard work."
Carolyn finds balance in returning to her home three hours away in Bancroft, where her husband runs a minerals business. Cooking, baking and taking her labrador retriever for walks in the forest are some of her favourite things.
In addition to her mother's connection to Holland Bloorview, Carolyn's father also enjoyed some time as a volunteer here. "After my mom passed away he brought his dog to pet therapy in the evening. It was a great community of volunteers. His dog had a little leg brace which interested the kids, and a volunteer name tag."
Carolyn says she feels a connection to her mom, who worked here for 28 years, in carrying on her legacy. "This organization has a spirit of working together to support people in what they say their goals are, and I respect that about Holland Bloorview and don't know that it exists elsewhere."
If she could change something about children's rehab, Carolyn says it would be equally funding "the things that really matter to young people and families, like friendship and belonging. I like the F-words from CanChild: friends, family, fun, function, fitness and future. We need to put an equal amount of time into all of those things."
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