Cheryl LaFrance began engaging with the Brain Wellness Program after her husband’s early Alzheimer’s disease diagnosis, not only enrolling him in online classes, but becoming involved herself as a participant in an intergenerational project and a series of workshops for care partners about experiences of Ambiguous Loss.

A career educator, Cheryl has taught English at the elementary and high school levels and led workshops in curriculum design and implementation, all the while in therapy for PTSD from childhood trauma. As a retirement project to fulfill a lifelong passion for dancing and writing poetry, as well as to explore a creative path for expressing the impacts of her trauma experiences, she embarked on an MA and PhD in Dance Studies at York University to research connections between the choreographic and writing processes.

Being involved as an instructor in a Brain Wellness Program intergenerational writing initiative allows her to combine the many facets of her professional and lived experiences in creative ways.