"Grill" Christopher Lakoff, Special Care Counselling Graduate 2021 - Seeking to Make the World a Kinder Place

What did graduating from Cegep mean after a year and half of online learning due to the pandemic?

For 2021 Vanier graduate Christopher Lakoff, better known as "Grill" to his friends and colleagues, it meant perseverance and aspiration. "I became a Vanier College Special Care Counselling graduate by persevering in spite of all the hardships thrown at me," says Grill who had been out of school for 10 years working all kinds of odd jobs before coming to Vanier. "As an SCC student, I finally found the way I wanted to distinguish myself. Surrounded by people who valued kindness, I was encouraged to nurture an environment where supporting one another was the norm."

Getting involved and volunteering

For Grill, this meant that he took every opportunity to get involved: to be an ambassador for "students for a day", to be an SCC peer tutor and to be a member of the "dream team" facilitators for the SCC Activities class Intensive outing for two years. He also periodically dropped into the West Montreal Readaptation Centre at Vanier, a sheltered workshop for neurodiverse young people and volunteered at the Centre for the Arts and Human Development working with individuals with developmental disabilities. This got him involved with Audio Penpals, a radio show broadcasted by some of the Centre's former participants, advocating for accessibility and inclusion. "Advocacy has always been a passion of mine, and music is an integral part of my identity, which is why I also co-organized a concert-panel event for mental health and volunteered with the Trans Trenderz, a network of gender non-conforming music artists, during Pride Week."

Given Grill's commitment to volunteer work, it's no surprise that he chose to study Special Care Counselling, which has trained him to intervene with individuals or groups of any age who experience various adjustment problems in the field of mental health, social services and education. Clearly, he's in the right field, but where does this desire to help others come from? "My mother. She is my hero. She is the one who taught me that we are here to help others."

Even the pandemic did not stop him.

"When COVID hit, I continued to look for volunteer work because helping the community had never been more important to me. I volunteered at the Welcome Hall Mission, preparing food baskets; COPE-AID with the Miriam Home, offering social phone calls; the UP House, where I continued to be involved animating an online program even after my internship with them was cut short due to the pandemic."

Answering the call to help in CHSLDs

"Of course, when the government asked students for help at the CHSLDs, I immediately jumped on board. I ended up working at the Jewish Eldercare (JEC) long-term care facility as a service aid for ten months, through two waves of COVID, finishing my final school semesters at the same time. It was a remarkable experience because I encountered heartbreaking and heartwarming stories that sensitized me to the fact that everyone has hopes and dreams and fears, and everyone matters."

Working at a job he loves

When he graduated, Grill immediately found a job working as a special care counsellor at the Miriam Home's Guimont Complex for adults with developmental disabilities and severe behavioral difficulties. "Today I can proudly say I collaborate daily with a multidisciplinary team which includes four of my fellow Vanier SCC graduates, brainstorming with them over interventions and approaches as if school classes had never ended."

What did Vanier give him?

"While I was a Vanier student, I was met with my hardest trials, but still achieved my greatest accomplishments. Vanier gave me the chance to demonstrate the indefatigable potential of kindness. I never saw myself as an academic. Even walking across the stage, as a graduate was something outside the scope of what I could have imagined for myself, yet sure enough, I got to do just that on my Mom's birthday no less. Vanier allowed me to unlock my path towards self-actualization. I have become the person that I myself would have needed to look up to when I was young - a role model to give me the confidence to be who I wanted to be."

Advice to younger students

"They should pursue their unlikeliest dreams, because if I had done otherwise, then I definitely don't think that I would be where I am today. They should remember that there is no mistake they might make that they cannot turn around and still achieve their goals if they work at it."