Group calls for counsellors, therapists to be regulated in B.C.

VANCOUVER (CityNews) – A group representing thousands of counsellors and therapists in B.C. is calling for regulation, saying anyone in the province can work as one, despite the fact they may not have any kind of certification.

Therapist Glen Grigg represents the Federation of Associations for Counselling Therapists in B.C., also known as FACTBC. The organization is made up of 6,000 B.C. counsellors and therapists who self-regulate to try and ensure quality of care. The group says B.C. desperately needs to set standards province-wide on who can and cannot treat patients.

“Right now in British Columbia you are taking a chance. It is as if you needed some work on your teeth, and you looked on the internet for a dentist and you say, ‘Well they all look good but I know that some of them are not qualified,'” Grigg tells CityNews Vancouver.

“It was an extremely traumatizing event … in my life,” Janice Williams, who was treated by an unlicensed therapist, says.

Anyone in B.C. can claim to be a therapist, despite the fact they may not have any kind of training. That’s according to a group representing thousands of counsellors and therapists in B.C., who say they have some major concerns. @AshleyBurr_ has more.https://t.co/eLPhoAHaiK

— CityNews 1130 Vancouver (Inactive) (@news1130) December 8, 2020

Williams explains she knows first hand the repercussions of seeking therapy from someone who doesn’t have the credentials to provide proper treatment.

“In letters, she would write that she had decades’ worth of experience as a counsellor, but it wasn’t true,” Williams says of her experience. “They’re getting more and more involved in my private life, my personal life, and becoming more isolated from groups. The whole thing was so traumatizing that it has taken me years to recover from it.”

FACTBC has sent a letter urging B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix to act now to regulate the industry, pointing to the increasing toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on the mental health of British Columbians.

However, Dix clarified Monday that any changes will take time.

“I understand that this is a day of advocacy for people who support the efforts of FACTBC and that they’ve been advocating for some time. There are other professions in those circumstances,” he said, adding the initial focus is on the current reform of the system that regulates health professionals, which was announced earlier this year.

Grigg feels reforming the mental health industry needs to be done at the same time.

“The majority of counselling therapists are very respectful and very careful about that. But you can imagine if there was just one person in British Columbia who said, ‘Now this is a chance for me to exploit that vulnerability,’ it would be a disaster. We need protection against that,” Grigg says.

Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Alberta have all regulated the profession.