President

Ron Lehr
CCPA President
2009 - 2011

As President, I am honoured to serve CCPA and its more than 3,200 members. I have served on the executive as the president-elect for two years, and I am now ready to serve this association for the next two years in service to the counselling community in Canada. To prepare for this new role, I bring my past experiences as: Teacher; School Counsellor; Private Practice Psychologist; CCPA Director for Nova Scotia; President of the Counsellor Educators Chapter; Chair of the CCPA Ethics Committee; member of the Advocacy, Sustainability and Liability Committee of CCPA; and my 20 years teaching in Counsellor Education Programs at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the University of Northern British Columbia and currently at Acadia University. Having attended numerous CCPA conferences and having talked to many counsellors from all across Canada, I believe I am prepared to represent the needs of the CCPA membership.

As president, it is my pleasure to introduce to you the new Board of Directors of CCPA for 2009-2011. I encourage you to get to know your representative more by reading their bios ?follow the links at www.ccpa-accp.ca. Our new Directors are: Kathy Mueller, British Columbia/Yukon; Blythe Shepard, Alberta/North West Territories. Blythe is also CCPA Treasurer and a member of the Executive Committee; Ardele Gorman, Saskatoon; Jeri Booth, Manitoba and Nunavut; Robin Cameron, Anglophone Director, Ontario and Michel Lefebvre, Francophone Director, Ontario; Louis Cournoyer, Francophone Director, Quebec and Lilli Janzen, Anglophone Director, Quebec; Marcel Gougen, Francophone Director, New Brunswick and Madeleine Lelievre, Anglophone Director, New Brunswick; Deborah Wood Salter, PEI; Linda Wheeldon, Nova Scotia; and, Heather White, Newfoundland and Labrador. I?d also like to welcome back Lorna Martin from Manitoba as President-Elect and Maria De Cicco Past President.

At our first Board meeting in Saskatoon, the Board engaged in a process, which led to the establishment of three goals we can focus on over the next three years. The first goal focuses on Professional Development Quality. The Board decided that by 2012, CCPA will create a professional development model that will provide high quality learning opportunities for you, CCPA members, connected directly to core competencies in counselling and psychotherapy. The second goal is Certification. By 2012, CCPA will work to be recognized by upcoming colleges as the first and leading association to certify counsellors and psychotherapists through its certification program, which aligns with provincial regulatory bodies. The third goal is Sustainability. As we move towards the horizon, we know a regulatory situation is unfolding across the country. To provide the kinds of services CCPA will deliver to you as these changes take place, we need to create new revenue sources and maybe increase membership fees. So, by 2012, CCPA will work to increase its general membership by 800, increase Francophone membership by a minimum of 10% and develop a new revenue stream where annual revenues will exceed expenses by $10,000.

At this point, I hope you see the relationship between the three goals we have set for ourselves. High quality professional development, Certification standards recognized by provincial regulatory colleges and sustainability will we believe contribute to making CCPA recognized as the leading association for counselling in Canada. I believe over the years we have done lots that have contributed to that vision.  I believe the work of our new board will move it along even farther. I am looking forward to working with the Board as we move in this bold new direction.