Fatima Khodary

International Occupational Therapist

I was born in the splendid French city of Montreal, Canada, where I spent most of my childhood moving around to different cities in Canada and eventually settled with my family in Connecticut, United States. After completing my high school in the US, I returned to my beloved hometown of Montreal to attend my dream university, McGill. I remained in Montreal where I met my husband, founded a family, and had two wonderful children, Mahdi and Jana. Growing up with many changes only facilitated taking on the new adventure of moving with my family to the sparkling city of London.

At McGill University, I enrolled in Cognitive Science as my undergraduate degree. I learned a great deal about myself, one of which is that working in a laboratory doing experiments independently was not the right fit for me. I needed to combine my love for science and arts while being in constant interaction with other people. This led me to pursue my studies in a professional master’s degree in Occupational Therapy. I was lucky enough to have had two of my four placements in a paediatric setting where it sparked a love that is ever increasing. My first placement was in a children’s hospital where I learned everything there is to know about childhood conditions. My second, in a school for children with Autism, widened my perspective on the importance of improving the quality of life for both the child and the parent.

This new perspective led me to enrol in a PhD program at McGill in Rehabilitation Science where the focus of my thesis was on respite care for children with Autism. My PhD studies were placed on hold for a moment due to the care of my young children, but it will remain a personal goal I seek to achieve in the upcoming years.

Since graduating from the occupational therapy program, I have gained much experience in working with children with motor, sensory, cognitive and learning difficulties in both the private and public sector. I was also fortunate to be part of the Early Stimulation Program in a community health centre where I provided parent and teacher workshops, school and nursery intervention programs, as well as animated motor and sensory stimulation groups. Since many of my clientele had sensory difficulties, I only found it pertinent to be trained in Sensory Integration to aid in my understanding of sensory difficulties.

Outside of work, I love scrapbooking, doing arts & crafts projects with my children, and travelling the world to experience new cultures and traditions. My multicultural background and my ability to speak English, French, Arabic, and some Spanish is an added bonus when travelling as I feel like I can belong anywhere.