Back to school

At 39 years old, Leya Jacobs has proven that school can come a little later. She studied special care counselling at Champlain College St. Lambert, finishing up a 22-month course in just nine months.

“They allowed me to go ahead of the class,” said Jacobs. “I based my final thesis paper on Indigenous students going to urban schools outside the community. I ended up getting a really good grade on it. I did that cohort in two weeks - it’s supposed to be a 14-week cohort.”

Jacobs originally chose to study special care counselling because of her sister.

“When I was a kid, my sister had special needs, and she had a hard time learning. We didn’t have anybody who was Aboriginal where we were at. I took it upon myself, when I was seven years old, to become the person nobody had,” said Jacobs.

Due to this decision, Jacobs wanted to help other special needs children, working at Howard S. Billings High School as a special education technician and now working at St. Willibrord.

“My original journey was at Champlain College Lennoxville where I had started the DEC (education diploma) program for special care counselling there. I switched out two-and-a-half years into the program, and I switched into Natives in early childhood education. When I finished that program. I applied everything that I learned and decided to go back into it and do the RAC (recognition of acquired competencies) program at Champlain,” said Jacobs.

“Eventually I want to get into child psychiatry,” she said. “There are no child psychologists here, and we have to go to the Montreal Children’s Hospital, so I would like to bring it back here and offer that service here eventually.”

Jacobs continued that she would like to join the Kateri Memorial Hospital Centre (KMHC) as an emergency walk-in psychologist for children.

“It was so difficult to go to school, have a full-time job, and a family at home, but with a lot of determination and a lot of support around me, I was able to get through,” said Jacobs. “It was also easier in a sense because I had a lot of background information and knowledge, so the information was easy. It was the schooling and the working that was difficult.”

Lisa Jacobs Vaincourt, Jacobs’ sister, said it is an accomplishment to seek higher education.

“I’m extremely proud of her in every single way you can think of because it’s not easy to go back to school or something like that and go what we went through in life, and for her to follow her dreams, I’m so proud of her,” she said.

Jacobs Vaincourt is the reason why Jacobs has taken this career path. “I’m honoured to know that it was me that she thought of because of what I went through. My sister just picked up my book one day, and she asked me if I needed help, and I said, yes, I do.

“And she helped me with book reports. She helped me with passing classes. It was remarkable. I’m ecstatic with how she helped me through to graduate high school,” said Jacobs Vaincourt.

“When my sister first told me that this was about me, I choked up. I started to cry, and I’m like, wow, I never thought,” said Jacobs Vaincourt.

Jacobs has gone through a journey of going back to school and encourages other adults to go back to school for more class.

“It’s never late to go back to school, no matter how old you are. Don’t give up if you have a dream, pursue it,” said Jacobs.

[email protected]