After three failed attempts in two years at ninth grade, Kerri-Lee’s psychiatrist told her about the Moncton Youth Residences Inc. CASP program. Working at her own pace, and one-on-one instruction, has led her to believe she can write her GED by the end of next year. She wants to put her life back on track and actually have a career, hoping to be a hairdresser, or a convenience store owner.

I had a lot of trouble in high school. I had a lot of people I got into fights with. I didn’t like them. I was suspended all the time. Everything was just too hard and I wasn’t interested in it. I never did work. I skipped school. You know the stuff that people usually do. I just threw myself away and got into drugs and didn’t care. From the age of fourteen to sixteen, I took twenty-nine overdoses.

I was seeing my psychiatrist for two years by then. I have a really good relationship with her, a good foundation. For her to tell me, “I encourage you to quit school, but not leave school, just finish it (there) and go somewhere else,” was like she was guiding me. Realizing what was going on at the atmosphere of high school opened my eyes. Drugs were a big part of it. My greatest pressure was from people. She encouraged me to leave the high school and made me interested in this program, so that I would want to come. It wasn’t a difficult decision at all.

So, I came about a month after I quit school. When I started, I found that I was lower in some things than I should have been. I was really nervous. I didn’t know what the instructor or anyone would be like. Was it going to be something like high school? When I got here, everyone was great, really nice. Six persons compared to twenty (in a class) is a lot different. It’s very quiet.

My family was so supportive, because I’d quit school. To come back to school and do something like this, was something that was good. My friends would put me down... that I was nothing but a high school dropout, but that didn’t matter. Some people criticize me because it’s only a GED, but they don’t know. I chose to lose a lot of people I used to hang around. I wanted to focus more. I don’t want to be around drugs or people who jig school. It wasn’t hard. I knew that it would be better for me.