TORONTO, November 23, 2011 − Three decades after the York-Seneca Rehabilitation Services Certificate Program was created, graduates are in high demand, working as specialists in vocational rehabilitation and providing support for people with physical, emotional and developmental disabilities.
The only rehab training of its kind in Canada, the program, which is offered jointly by York University and Seneca College, provides undergraduate students with a unique mix of academic training in psychology, courses in rehabilitation and practical field experience.
Current students, graduates, professors, and professionals from the rehabilitation field will gather on Monday, Nov. 28, to celebrate York-Seneca Rehab’s 30th anniversary.
The program was founded by the late Hy Day, a York University psychology professor who had worked in rehabilitation in Israel and was passionate about promoting the field in Canada.
“What has changed since then is that we actually have textbooks now. Rehabilitation training was very new to Canada when the York-Seneca program started,” says York coordinator Christine Till, a psychology professor in York’s Faculty of Health. “What hasn’t changed is that there is still a rigorous application process to get one of 30 spots in the program, two years of placement, and more than a full-time course load.”
York students enroll in the joint rehab program in the last two years of their undergraduate degree. At the end of the four or five-year road are a B.A. or B.Sc. degree, a joint York-Seneca Certificate in Rehabilitation Services, and a career helping people.
Katherine Castillo, who graduated from the program in 2005, did vocational rehabilitation in her first placement, including return-to-work plans for people on disability benefits. In her second placement, as an assistant parole officer, she helped male federal offenders with mental, physical and developmental disabilities re-integrate into the community. She now manages disability claims for employees of the Toronto Transit Commission, and is the field placement coordinator and a part-time instructor for the York-Seneca Rehab program.
“The field placement portion of our program enables students to learn firsthand how community organizations connect with individuals that have barriers to employment, and to their medical recovery, and whose goals are to gain back full function and independence in their lives,” she said.
Graduates of the program find careers in many kinds of organizations, including provincial ministries of health, community and social services, correctional services, Workplace Safety Insurance Board, the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, and most major insurance companies.
“We have come a long way in the rehabilitation field in the past three decades, and our students are making a difference,” says Till. “However we know there is still a long way to go for people who have had injuries, for example, and are trying to return to work. This is a field where we need to grow as a nation.”
WHAT: 30th Anniversary Celebration for York-Seneca Rehab program
WHEN: Monday, November 28, 2011, 2:30 to 4pm
WHERE: Seneca @ York University, Kaleidoscope Room, S2168 (2nd floor)
MAP: building 40 at http://www.yorku.ca/yorkweb/maps/keele.htm
Media Contact:
Janice Walls, Media Relations, York University, 416 736 2100 x22101 / wallsj@yorku.ca