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The pandemic was a challenging yet rewarding time for Dr. Maaike Canrinus.

This week, Dr. Canrinus will take the Convocation stage to receive her Doctor of Education in School Psychology, having refined her skill set through completing a dissertation-in-practice, which explores a real-world issue drawn from professional life. Dr. Canrinus is part of the inaugural cohort of students in the Doctor of Education in School Psychology program.

The problem she set out to address in her doctoral research was how to improve pyschologists’ practices in giving feedback to families for psychoeducational assessments. This undertaking was developed over the course of establishing up her clinic, .

“[My degree] is directly linked to what I'm doing all of the time, and it has given me new ideas and different perspectives about how to engage in the practice of giving feedback to families,” she says. “It also has given me ideas about how I can support others, supervise others, and train other clinicians to do this better.”

The path to the present

Dr. Canrinus put off doctoral studies for years, prioritizing her career and starting a family since the late 2000s. However, she always knew she wanted to pursue doctoral studies one day.

The EdD in School Psychology program came to her attention as the COVID pandemic was ramping up and the business was slowing down.

“I honestly didn't know what was going to happen to the practice,” says Dr. Canrinus of that 2020 period. “I had never even been on a Zoom call with a client before.”

“The practice had been growing so I don't know if I would have pursued my doctoral studies otherwise, but was forced to slow down during COVID,” she said.

She found the program appealing as a working practitioner trying to strike a balance between work and life. “Running a practice, having a family, and doing school was definitely a lot to manage,” she said, “but the fact that this program was designed for people working in the field already made it doable for me. [I enjoyed] working alongside an amazing cohort of classmates, many of whom were also balancing a lot of things at this stage of life.”

Canrinus' mentors and instructors saw a person ready for higher learning. Dr. Archie Kwan, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream and the Graduate Program Coordinator and Director of Clinical Training for Maaike’s doctoral program, says she already had the academic abilities and learning skills needed to succeed in an academically demanding doctoral program in school psychology.

“Maaike's outstanding success as a student was evident in how she approached her learning, always from a place of humility and grace,” he said. “She took the time to reflect deeply on her existing abilities, welcomed new learning, and integrated these ideas and perspectives into her knowledge and clinical skills.”

Her mentor, Dr. Susan Graham-Clay, concurs. “Pursuing a doctoral program has provided Maaike the opportunity to expand and update her knowledge base even further, and to pursue focused areas of interest in greater depth,” she said. “Maaike was a pleasure to work with and I was very pleased at this point in my career to provide support and mentorship to such a talented young psychologist.”

The feedback loop

A large part of Canrinus’ focus at her practice is on psycho-educational assessments for children and teenagers. After an assessment is complete, results are typically shared in the form of a report and oral feedback. However, this is where some clinicians experience a gap in training.

“As psychologists, we don't get very much training on how to conduct a feedback meeting,” she says, “we get a lot of training on how to do assessments, how to do testing, how to synthesize and formulate diagnoses and all of that stuff, but we'd never really get a ton of training on how to actually conduct the meeting.”

That fascination was initially a point of anxiety because she knew how important they were, but she found herself underprepared in how to provide feedback in a helpful, meaningful way that supports a family.

“My whole career, I've always been interested in that topic, and I've tried to learn from colleagues and develop my own way of giving feedback,” says Dr. Canrinus.

To refine this focus in her doctoral dissertation-in-practice, she completed a case study by interviewing other Ontario psychologists about how they developed the skills and capacity to give feedback, while also asking them about their training and experiences.

“I got to learn so much about how other people have experienced growing in this way,” she says.

During this time, Dr. Graham-Clay, offered regular opportunities to discuss a range of tricky issues in the field.

“Ethical questions that sometimes arise in psychological practice, challenging case conceptualizations – such as analyzing assessment results and formulating diagnoses – as well as support and considerations when supervising other clinicians,” says Dr. Graham-Clay, a school psychologist currently in private practice in Barrie. “Maaike brings a balanced and thoughtful approach to her work to address the individual goals and needs of each client she serves.”

Dr. Canrinus showed tremendous skill, and was kind, compassionate and approachable, says Dr. Graham-Clay. “She is clearly passionate about her work, and she strives to provide thoughtful, comprehensive services that meet the needs of the children, teens and families she works with,” she says. “Maaike is also innovative in her practice of psychology including work with First Nations communities, experimenting with psychological report formats to make them more user friendly, and running various treatment groups for children. 

“It was a pleasure to experience Maaike's commitment to the field of psychology and to provide the highest quality services. It is indeed exciting to see such an accomplished early career psychologist excel in serving the needs of children and youth in our community.”

Dr. Kwan, as a director of clinical training at OISE, saw Dr. Canrinus apply this work with profound depth. “Maaike consistently demonstrated an unusual depth of caring and unique compassion for her young clients and a recognition of the complex family and cultural ecology in which children and youth reside,” he says.

As Dr. Canrinus refines what it means to assess feedback, her colleagues are giving her high praise. Her student colleagues, Dr. Kwan says, describe her as an “incredible human being” who has expanded her work into supervising others as a psychologist, “demonstrating the high standards she holds for herself in the service of others.”

“It has been an absolute pleasure to be part of Maaike's journey through her doctoral program in school psychology, and I wish her the best in all her future endeavours,” says Kwan.

As Canrinus' career progresses, she takes a moment to look back at the last few years with gratitude – especially for programs like the one she completed, as well as her student colleagues, mentors and leaders.

“I love that higher education is getting to this point where we're doing things in ways that aren't necessarily like the old fashioned, traditional ways – a program like this is so much more accessible for people in different locations, in different stages of life,” she says. “I love that, so grateful for that.

“I’m also super grateful for my cohort of colleagues. I don't know if it was because it was COVID or because we were the first cohort, or if it was just good luck, but we really gelled from the beginning,” she adds. “As a group, we provided so much support to each other – from the very beginning right through to very, very end for me. They are hugely supportive and amazing.”