Krystal Brant never finished high school. She would go on to earn a Master of Education and, last fall, a Master of Social Work from U of T's Factor-Inwentash Faculty — while working as a single mother of five and serving as president of the Ontario Native Women's Association.
Brant spent a decade as an educator working with Indigenous communities before the COVID-19 pandemic, when several of her former students died of accidental overdoses. The losses pushed her toward the Master of Social Work's Indigenous Trauma and Resilience program, built to prepare practitioners for exactly this kind of harm.
I want to see a day when Indigenous people don’t need specialized support teamsKrystal Brant
She also spent four years caring for an aunt through cancer, and traces some of her drive to her mother, who was raised by a residential school survivor and helped establish Indigenous organizations across the Niagara region.
A few months before graduating, Brant addressed the United Nations in Switzerland. She is now an Indigenous Relations Specialist at Niagara Health, part of an all-Indigenous team working to make hospital systems safe and welcoming for Indigenous patients.
Her stated goal is to make her own job redundant — to build a health system where the specialized support she now provides is no longer needed.
Reported from Alum Krystal Brant is making healthcare systems safe and welcoming for Indigenous communities, by Not stated (originally published by the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work) (U of T Alumni News, January 28, 2026).
More from the original reporting: alumni.utoronto.ca/news/alum-krystal-brant-making-healthcare-systems-safe-and-welcoming-indigenous-communities-0