As a young girl, Toresa Muitty-Mehra admired her mother’s work ethic for the family business — a daycare on Edmonton’s south side. Once Toresa realized her own natural ability to tap into a child’s needs, she pursued a psychology degree to bolster her real world experience with classroom wisdom.

Today Toresa and her sister Sunddip Muitty own the childcare center Tipaskan Educational Daycare in the Mill Woods area. Although the center continues to thrive since its October grand opening, Toresa, 30, hasn’t stopped her education. With support from her husband Aman Mehra, Toresa is now in her final year at City University of Seattle — a private, not-for-profit university where she’s earning a Master of Counselling degree. Recently, Sunddip, 24, also joined the program, now in its 10th year and offered in Edmonton and Calgary.

“We felt like there were barriers without more education,” Toresa says. “We were really interested in pursuing a master’s degree and making an impact in the field. Now, even with our busy schedules, we can make that happen at CityU.”

When Toresa and Sunddip finish the Master of Counselling program they will be qualified to pursue a career as a Registered Psychologist in Alberta or a Canadian Certified Counsellor in other provinces. They’ll leave the program prepared for the realities of day-to-day practice in youth and family treatment agencies, employee assistance programs, school systems and health care facilities, among others.

Currently the sisters are in a cohort — or learning group — taught by practitioner faculty who are experts in the field. Students take a broad range of coursework, including Psychology Theory, Couples, Group and Adolescent Counselling, Statistics and Ethics and Law. They also complete a clinical internship.

“I enjoy CityU’s quality of education,” Toresa says. “My professors take feedback and want to make it a unique experience for me. Classes focus on different areas depending on student interests. It’s so flexible when compared to the traditional way of teaching.”

Although Toresa is still in school, she can apply CityU lessons to her daycare of 10 employees and about 50 children ages 0 to 12. She’s also able to do “a lot more for the kids” by incorporating specialized programming and staff training. After graduation, she wants to open a family counselling practice and design workshops on preventative measures for daycare staff.

“As a future psychologist, I want to teach people to look for warning signs while on duty as well as how to get through the day,” she says. “In my field there’s a huge need for specialized skills. Burn out is a huge factor. My goal is to see a difference made for a child.”

For information about CityU’s Master of Counselling degree, please visit www.CityU.edu/Canada.