| August 21, 2019

Karen Neary, Child Development Consultant

Karen Neary, Child Development Consultant

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Karen Neary graduated with a PhD in Development and Child Psychology from the University of Waterloo. Currently, she works as a child development consultant at her own private practice, Karen Neary Autism and Behaviour Consulting.

 Q: Can you tell us a bit about your path leading to the PhD?

 Well, I did this all a bit different than most people. I had obtained a college degree in medical X-ray technology. Then, I had a son that was diagnosed with autism and I had to figure out what to do to help him, which meant a lot of research. I started working with him and then was hired by the state of Georgia (where we were living at the time) to help other kids. I felt strange providing intervention, as I was just a mom and an X-ray tech and didn’t have the education to back up what I was doing.

So, after we moved back to Waterloo, I decided to go to university. My original plan was to get a B.A. in psychology and then go to teacher’s college. During the process, I ended up absolutely loving research, and I thought, “Well, I’ll get a Masters and then be an OT or a physical therapist or something similar,” but the research ended up being what I was most interested in and so I just kept going.

I ended up doing all my degrees in Waterloo—(we were Canadian and had been living in Georgia while my husband was paying off his student loans from medical school). Maybe doing everything in one place isn’t ideal, but it worked well for me.

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to work in private practice or go into academia, but I wanted to have the option to do both. And I figured my PhD would give me the best of both worlds.

 Q: Have you found that to be the case?

I went into private practice, but my PhD has helped me considerably. Other people in Waterloo Region did similar work as me, but I was the only one in that area who had a PhD, so people tended to gravitate towards me just because of the title and the extra education.

Q: What kind of teaching did you do while in your program?

I did some guest lectures and some TAing, and even that experience was very helpful to my private practice. Getting experience at public speaking and planning lectures was useful, as I do a lot of workshops and go into schools and do presentations. I would have liked to have even more experience.

Q: What was your funding like during your PhD?

I had an NSERC grant, which was very helpful. It’s hard to make ends meet when you have children and you need to pay for childcare.

Q: How was your experience of being a mother at the same time as doing your PhD?

It was challenging, especially having a child with a disability on top of everything. It was a lot of long hours trying to coordinate everything, and then in the middle of it we had to move to Stratford to get my son into a school that would help him a little bit more. I had to add commute time and dollars. But then again, grad school was helpful because you could have flexible hours when you needed to schedule things like meetings or appointments with the kids.

Q: Did you do any other work during your time in grad school, other than TAing?

I opened up an intervention company when I was doing my Masters, so I had some private clients.

Q: How did you find your mentorship and support in the department, especially considering you had family responsibilities?

It was very good. My PhD advisor was amazing. He gave me many opportunities, and he set things up so that if I had wanted to go into academia, I could have. He had me attending conferences, giving presentations, and provided me with many academic opportunities. He was probably the best advisor I could have had—he was still very understanding of my family and would give me the time off when I needed it.

I had another faculty member that I had completed my NSERC placement with in undergrad and he became a mentor to me as well. He was often my sounding board and helped me a lot.

In general, the department was pretty good; if they saw that somebody was working hard, they were helpful in adjusting to people’s schedules or trying to make everything work for them. One time, for example, one of my kids had a high fever, and they told me to bring him along to the brown bag lunch. And in my last year, I ended up with a back injury, so I couldn’t sit down. My advisor ended up buying an adjustable desk, and I wrote my dissertation standing up in my office. The department did everything they could to help, and I was still able to finish on time.

The grad students were also pretty close-knit—we did things to help everybody and got together outside of the grad school experience. I still have many friendships and see people now.

Q: Did you have the opportunity to mentor anyone?

Yes, I was in charge of our lab and all the undergrads, and I definitely took a mentorship role with them. In fact three of them ended up going into the same field as I did and did a Masters degree.

Q: How long did it take you to finish your degree?

I did my Masters in one year and my PhD in three years, finishing in 2011. I was older, so I was trying to hurry.

Q: Did you feel like that was a good amount of time? What helped you finish?

Yes, it was a little bit rushed at the end, but it’s pretty good. I think my own sense of work ethic and knowing what it was like to work a 40-hour job helped a lot: I took it as an eight-to-five job. And, because I had a family, I had to really budget my time.

My supervisor helped a lot too—we were always collecting data and always had things going on, so it was easy to continue my own research, finish it off, and get going.

 Q: What did you do after graduation?

Immediately after graduation, I was set up to pursue a postdoc. But I would have had to move the family, and then, if I was going into academia, I’d really have to be willing to move everywhere.

So I just decided that wasn’t in my cards. I started working with a company in Waterloo as a Behavior Consultant, managing children with Autism’s programs. After a year, though, I decided to open my own practice, in the summer of 2012. The only thing that was difficult was learning from scratch how to start a business—it’s not like you learn how to run a business in your PhD. Having academic contacts helped, since professors would often get calls from families looking for help, and they could give them my business card.

Q: How do you feel about your decision to not go into academia? Do you ever regret it?

Oh yeah, I’ll always regret not doing academia, because I was really set up to do it. I’m good at it, and if I would have done the process as a younger student I would have done academia. But I’m still happy I did what I did.

I do know that it’s definitely always been my calling to work with kids with autism, and I was able to continue that. And I definitely think that I’ve made more money this way, which is part of what I needed for my family at the time as well.

Q: Do you have any advice that you’d provide to someone in the same position as you and wanting to start their own business?

Just keep making different contacts. If your university has resources, take advantage of that. You could really learn everything you need to do before trying to feel your way along. 

Karen Neary graduated with a PhD in Development and Child Psychology from the University of Waterloo. Currently, she works as a child development consultant at her own private practice, Karen Neary Autism and Behaviour Consulting.

 Q: Can you tell us a bit about your path leading to the PhD?

 Well, I did this all a bit different than most people. I had obtained a college degree in medical X-ray technology. Then, I had a son that was diagnosed with autism and I had to figure out what to do to help him, which meant a lot of research. I started working with him and then was hired by the state of Georgia (where we were living at the time) to help other kids. I felt strange providing intervention, as I was just a mom and an X-ray tech and didn’t have the education to back up what I was doing.

So, after we moved back to Waterloo, I decided to go to university. My original plan was to get a B.A. in psychology and then go to teacher’s college. During the process, I ended up absolutely loving research, and I thought, “Well, I’ll get a Masters and then be an OT or a physical therapist or something similar,” but the research ended up being what I was most interested in and so I just kept going.

I ended up doing all my degrees in Waterloo—(we were Canadian and had been living in Georgia while my husband was paying off his student loans from medical school). Maybe doing everything in one place isn’t ideal, but it worked well for me.

I wasn’t sure whether I was going to work in private practice or go into academia, but I wanted to have the option to do both. And I figured my PhD would give me the best of both worlds.

 Q: Have you found that to be the case?

I went into private practice, but my PhD has helped me considerably. Other people in Waterloo Region did similar work as me, but I was the only one in that area who had a PhD, so people tended to gravitate towards me just because of the title and the extra education.

Q: What kind of teaching did you do while in your program?

I did some guest lectures and some TAing, and even that experience was very helpful to my private practice. Getting experience at public speaking and planning lectures was useful, as I do a lot of workshops and go into schools and do presentations. I would have liked to have even more experience.

Q: What was your funding like during your PhD?

I had an NSERC grant, which was very helpful. It’s hard to make ends meet when you have children and you need to pay for childcare.

Q: How was your experience of being a mother at the same time as doing your PhD?

It was challenging, especially having a child with a disability on top of everything. It was a lot of long hours trying to coordinate everything, and then in the middle of it we had to move to Stratford to get my son into a school that would help him a little bit more. I had to add commute time and dollars. But then again, grad school was helpful because you could have flexible hours when you needed to schedule things like meetings or appointments with the kids.

Q: Did you do any other work during your time in grad school, other than TAing?

I opened up an intervention company when I was doing my Masters, so I had some private clients.

Q: How did you find your mentorship and support in the department, especially considering you had family responsibilities?

It was very good. My PhD advisor was amazing. He gave me many opportunities, and he set things up so that if I had wanted to go into academia, I could have. He had me attending conferences, giving presentations, and provided me with many academic opportunities. He was probably the best advisor I could have had—he was still very understanding of my family and would give me the time off when I needed it.

I had another faculty member that I had completed my NSERC placement with in undergrad and he became a mentor to me as well. He was often my sounding board and helped me a lot.

In general, the department was pretty good; if they saw that somebody was working hard, they were helpful in adjusting to people’s schedules or trying to make everything work for them. One time, for example, one of my kids had a high fever, and they told me to bring him along to the brown bag lunch. And in my last year, I ended up with a back injury, so I couldn’t sit down. My advisor ended up buying an adjustable desk, and I wrote my dissertation standing up in my office. The department did everything they could to help, and I was still able to finish on time.

The grad students were also pretty close-knit—we did things to help everybody and got together outside of the grad school experience. I still have many friendships and see people now.

Q: Did you have the opportunity to mentor anyone?

Yes, I was in charge of our lab and all the undergrads, and I definitely took a mentorship role with them. In fact three of them ended up going into the same field as I did and did a Masters degree.

Q: How long did it take you to finish your degree?

I did my Masters in one year and my PhD in three years, finishing in 2011. I was older, so I was trying to hurry.

Q: Did you feel like that was a good amount of time? What helped you finish?

Yes, it was a little bit rushed at the end, but it’s pretty good. I think my own sense of work ethic and knowing what it was like to work a 40-hour job helped a lot: I took it as an eight-to-five job. And, because I had a family, I had to really budget my time.

My supervisor helped a lot too—we were always collecting data and always had things going on, so it was easy to continue my own research, finish it off, and get going.

 Q: What did you do after graduation?

Immediately after graduation, I was set up to pursue a postdoc. But I would have had to move the family, and then, if I was going into academia, I’d really have to be willing to move everywhere.

So I just decided that wasn’t in my cards. I started working with a company in Waterloo as a Behavior Consultant, managing children with Autism’s programs. After a year, though, I decided to open my own practice, in the summer of 2012. The only thing that was difficult was learning from scratch how to start a business—it’s not like you learn how to run a business in your PhD. Having academic contacts helped, since professors would often get calls from families looking for help, and they could give them my business card.

Q: How do you feel about your decision to not go into academia? Do you ever regret it?

Oh yeah, I’ll always regret not doing academia, because I was really set up to do it. I’m good at it, and if I would have done the process as a younger student I would have done academia. But I’m still happy I did what I did.

I do know that it’s definitely always been my calling to work with kids with autism, and I was able to continue that. And I definitely think that I’ve made more money this way, which is part of what I needed for my family at the time as well.

Q: Do you have any advice that you’d provide to someone in the same position as you and wanting to start their own business?

Just keep making different contacts. If your university has resources, take advantage of that. You could really learn everything you need to do before trying to feel your way along. 

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