Please click on the following questions to see their answers:
Why does your counselling practice only provide services for children, youth, and young adults?
How is your practice different from that of other counsellors?
Will you see children/youth who have been impacted by a wide variety of mental health issues?
Are your services covered by the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA)?
Are your services covered by the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP)?
Why does your counselling practice only provide services for children, youth, and young adults?
The reason I chose to focus my practice specifically on children, youth, and young adults is twofold. One, I simply love working with young people and their families. I guess you could call it a calling. Maybe this is because I still feel like a teenager at heart, or maybe it’s because I enjoy helping kids and their parents break through difficulties so that they can become healthier and happier. Explaining the reason for our passions can sometimes be quite difficult because they call to us from a very deep and innate place.
Second, I want to be really good at what I do. Therefore, I think it's best to focus on what I’m passionate about and what makes me happy. There are some counsellors who provide services to a wide variety of clientele including children & youth, adults, couples, seniors, etc. Although this can help to diversify your skills as a counsellor and provide a great deal of variety in your practice, I prefer to focus my practice on young people.
Children, youth, and young adults present with very unique developmental and social issues. I could spend my career working with this population and never learn everything there is to learn. This, along with my passion, compels me to work specifically with this age group. After all, specializing within the field of mental health is not unique; psychiatrists and physicians also specialize in specific areas of practice related to age and development.
What age do you consider someone to be a youth?
I don’t really have a strict definition of who a youth is when it comes to accepting new clients. Generally speaking, I consider a youth to be someone who is in their early to mid 20’s. I do work with clients who fall within this age range.
Will you work with the parents/caregivers of your clients?
Yes, of course! The most effective treatment plan for any young person is one that incorporates their parents/caregivers. It is not uncommon for child & youth counsellors to sometimes work exclusively with the parents/caregivers of a young client. Because of particular issues that may be going on for a young person, it may be difficult for them to participate in individual counselling. Whenever this occurs, I will meet specifically with a child/youth’s parents/caregivers as a means of helping them to create strategies that strive to resolve their child/youth’s mental health concerns.
Parent/caregiver involvement in the counselling process isn’t just exclusive to children and youth who aren’t able to participate in. Even in cases where I am meeting individually with a young person, conducting regularly scheduled appointments and updates with their parents/caregivers is essential for best practice.
How is your practice different from that of other counsellors?
I can't answer that with absolute certainty because I haven't observed a lot of other counsellors, given that counselling is a private working relationship between the therapist and client. That said, I can speak about two aspects of my practice that may be different from others:
1) I want to get clients off my caseload. The reality is that very few young people want to see a counsellor if they are already happy and healthy. My goal as a clinician is to help clients get to a place where they no longer have a need to see me. In my opinion, counsellors should never focus on creating permanent ‘customers.’ My goal as a counsellor is essentially to get out of a young person’s life so that they no longer require counselling services. After all, who wants to spend all their time and money in therapy? Isn’t the goal of counselling to get happy and healthy so that you no longer need to see a counsellor?
2) Prior to developing a treatment plan with any client, I conduct a comprehensive mental health assessment.
What is a comprehensive mental health assessment?
Let's say a client asks for help regarding issues related to depression. Well, there are many factors that could contribute to someone developing depression including, but not limited to, substance abuse, family or socio-economic difficulties, anxiety, trauma, a medical condition, grief and loss, a pervasive development disorder, the prodromal stages of psychosis, etc… Experience has shown me that starting the counselling process without having taken the time to assess the client's underlying need for services can often result in therapy that doesn’t yield results.
Take the case of someone who may have depression. The methods used to treat depression caused by substance abuse would be different from those used to treat depression caused by grief and loss. A comprehensive mental health assessment not only helps to identify the underlying factors that may be causing difficulty for the client, it also helps the client and clinician categorize which symptoms and behaviors are of primary concern and how different symptoms and behaviours impact one another. Essentially, the assessment process is the ‘figuring out’ and ‘planning’ stage of counselling. Just like building your dream home, one has to sit down and makes plans before they start banging nails, or, as my father always said, “Measure twice and cut once.” A good treatment plan for any client is one that is transparent and explores all possibilities without making assumptions about the underlying cause of one’s mental health concerns.
A comprehensive mental health assessment consists of a brief interview with the parents/caregivers, as well as reviewing the social history information that they provided. This assessment is combined with a face-to-face interview with the young person. During the interview, the client and clinician assess which symptoms and behaviors are most life impairing. Through a series of interview questions, the clinician effectively rules out a plethora of different mental health concerns that could be contributing to the client’s need to see a counsellor. Once the assessment is complete, the clinician, client, and their parents/caregivers develop a treatment plan that strives to get the young person happy and healthy and the clinician out of their life. In situations involving older youth and young adults, parents/caregivers may not be involved in the assessment process, although each situation is unique.
It should be noted that the clinical assessment is an ongoing process. Although an initial comprehensive assessment is conducted upfront, a good therapeutic relationship always involves the process of reassessment in order to ensure that the client is being provided with the most effective treatment plan possible.
Will you see children/youth who have been impacted by a wide variety of mental health issues?
Yes and no. Throughout my career, I have worked with children, youth, and families who have been impacted by a wide variety of mental health issues including anxiety, depression, substance-abuse, grief and loss, trauma, self-harm behaviour, suicidality, psychosis, autism, etc... Although I have experience working with a wide variety of mental health issues, not all of these issues are suitable for treatment in a private practice capacity. Some mental health concerns require a multi-disciplinary approach that is often only available through government agencies such as Island Health and Child & Youth Mental Health.
For clients presenting with issues that go beyond the scope of private practice, I believe it is only ethical to redirect them to resources in the community that are specifically designed for complex mental health cases. I have no interest in taking money from clients in exchange for me providing them with counselling services, when there are more affordable resources in the community that are better suited for their child's mental health concerns. To do so would simply be unethical.
As someone in private practice, how did you acquire experience working with children and youth who struggle with complex mental health issues?
Good question! For roughly 99.9% of my clinical counselling career, I have worked as a mental health clinician for children and youth in a wide variety of frontline agencies. These agencies are very different from private practice because you are expected to assess, diagnose, and treat clients for a wide variety of mental health concerns that are often quite complex in nature. With experience and time, I gained opportunity working with children and youth who struggle with very complex mental health issues that require in-depth assessment. This really honed my experience, insight, and skill as a clinician.
Which clinical modalities do you offer to clients?
The bulk of my training is in cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, and applied behavioral analysis. That said, my clinical practice doesn’t operate exclusively within the framework of these clinical modalities. There are four reasons for this:
1) There is major overlap between all clinical modalities. When analyzed closely, many clinical modalities share common approaches and strategies that make them more similar than different. For example, a session that is being offered by a counsellor who is providing their client with a cognitive behavioral therapy approach could look very similar if they were to provide the same client with a narrative therapy approach.
2) Your approach has a lot to do with how a particular clinical modality comes across to the client. For example, throughout my career, I have conducted countless sessions with kids on a beach; batting rocks into the ocean with a stick while using diagrams and drawings in the sand to illustrate what I believe was cognitive behavioural therapy. Another counsellor could easily look at my session and describe it as a form of play therapy. Without an effective approach, the teachings of any clinical modality can become completely lost on the client. At the same time, a great approach is rather useless if it is not underpinned by solid clinical teachings.
3) The biggest criteria that determines the effectiveness of clinical counselling is the rapport between the therapist and counsellor. Without good rapport, the counselling will be less effective regardless of the clinical modality used. Therefore, it is it better to focus on relationship building, as well as an effective and ongoing assessment, than it is to focus on staying within the confines of a particular clinical modality.
4) In my opinion, becoming overly focused on the use of a particular clinical modality doesn't allow for flexibility. Human beings are dynamic and ever-changing creatures. As a result, they will likely benefit most from a counselling approach that is equally dynamic and ever-changing. In my opinion, when a counsellor becomes overly focused on using a particular type of clinical modality, they may lose sight of alternative approaches that could yield more positive results. The goal should never be to have the client fit into your form of therapy, but rather have your therapeutic approach fit the needs of your client.
Are your services covered by EFAP (Employee Family Assistance Program) or Health Service Benefits (ie: Green Shield/Blue Cross)?
I am a registered healthcare provider for Medavie Blue Cross, Pacific Blue Cross, Green Shield, SSQ Financial Group, and the Criminal Victim Assistance Program. This includes coverage for members of the Canadian Armed Forces, RCMP, and Veterans Affairs. Should you have any questions about your health insurance benefits, your best bet is to contact your EFAP or Health Services Provider directly and ask them about your specific policy in regards to its financial coverage for a registered clinical social worker.
Are your services covered by the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA)?
Yes, I can provide counselling services to clients who are covered through the First Nations Health Authority. This includes coverage for the FNHB Short-Term Crisis Intervention Mental Health Counselling, and the Indian Residential Schools Resolution Health Support Program. For further information regarding these programs, please refer to the FNHA website (www.fnha.ca).
Are your services covered by the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP)?
Yes, because CVAP pays me a rate of $95 per session, clients are asked to pay the remainder of my session fee ($55 to $85).