‘It’s bittersweet’: Inclusive graduation honours achievements of special needs students

Since 1996, Concordia University’s Centre for the Arts in Human Development (CAHD) has been consistently showing that creative arts can be a powerful form of therapy. Over the years they’ve been helping Montreal adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities build confidence, boost self-esteem and connect with others through music, drama, art, dance and theatre.

The graduating class of 2025 celebrated this achievement with a ceremony recognizing their resilience, transformation and empowerment.

“First coming to graduation it’s one of the most respectable fabulous things to do – it’s very touching, and it’s bittersweet honestly because this program just brings joy to people who are in the spectrum of special needs and I just find it such a great program,” said graduate of the program, Matthew Dobbs-Quienty.

“It’s an honour and it’s just a great experience to actually have this opportunity to grow as an individual,” added his colleague and fellow graduate, Italo Ferrante.

Concordia works closely with two health and social service centres to refer applicants to the program, which accepts 20 adults with special needs every two years. Students attend art therapy sessions twice a week to challenge themselves in reaching their goals.

“The first year I wasn’t so confident, I had problems, but as the years went by I grew to be very confident, very independent,” said Dobbs-Quienty.

“I learned what I liked and what I didn’t like in this program, what I stand for, what I don’t stand for, and it taught me a lot of things,” he went on to explain.

For Ferrante, the program not only gave him more confidence over the years, but says he’s learned to look at life in a more positive way.

“My main goal was just to be more confident and to not be afraid to stand my ground and say, you know what, I’m different and that’s okay,” he said confidently.

During the art therapy sessions, students are encouraged to not only tackle their personal goals, but to tackle challenges they face in their daily lives.

“I got a lot of feedback that they wanted to do things that were challenging, a lot of things that they wanted to work on, things that applied to their real life,” said Maxwell Folk, a drama therapy intern who started interning at CAHD in Oct. 2024 and finished just last week. “Maybe a job interview coming up or maybe a difficult conversation with a friend. And stuff like that would come up quite often.”

While the program shows to be helpful and rewarding for the participants, it also serves to help interns studying in various fields of art therapy, who are not only gaining experience in their profession but also come to foster relationships with their students.

“I feel like we’ve grown such a great therapeutic bond with them and it’s, I think what I’ve learned the most from their reaction to therapy is how resilient, how strong they are and just that they have a voice to offer,” said Sandrine Bernier, a music therapy intern at CAHD.

In the end, graduation may be bitter sweet for some graduates but they all have new goals for their future.

“After this, I’m actually looking forward to the future, I’m looking to become a professional DJ and music producer and to travel the globe,” said Ferrante.