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In Ontario there also been a group of professional associations in contact with the government over the past 6 years with respect to legislative regulatory developments. This group is called the Ontario Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and it consists of representatives from 17 different associations, including CCA. The Coalition has attempted to have an influence on regulatory initiatives by the Ontario Ministry of Health.
In 2007 the Government of Ontario passed legislation to amend the Regulated Health Professions Act by adding to it a new section entitled Schedule R: Psychotherapy and Registered Mental Health Therapists Act It makes provisions for the creation of a regulatory college to regulate, for the first time, professionals with the titles Psychotherapist and Registered Mental Health Therapist. Having passed this Act there is now activity directed at developing the administrative protocols and standards to operationalize this new legislation.
The many practitioners represented by the Coalition have a variety of professional titles, including counsellor, therapist, and psychotherapist. We anticipate that most of these professionals will be eligible for entry into this new regulatory College and that this will include our Ontario CCA members who have acquired the status of Canadian Certified Counsellors (CCC). Of course we are not certain of this outcome since the many elements of this new administrative law such as, qualifications for entry, standards of practice and so on have not yet been determined.
The Transitional Council members (which will articulate the entry requirements for this new College) were appointed on October 23, 2009. For more information regarding the Council, click here.
The Ontario Coalition website has a series of Questions and Answers that will be of interest to Ontario counsellors.
Quebec was the first province to regulate counselling. The title conseiller d’orientation (c.o.) is protected. In English the title translates closely, but not exactly, to guidance counsellor. Professionals with this title in Quebec work in many environments, including in rehabilitation centres and in private practice, and provide professional services similar to counsellors in the rest of Canada. The regulatory college in Quebec is entitled l’Ordre des conseillers et conseillères d'orientation et des psychoéducateurs et psychoéducatrices and it also regulates marital therapists and it will soon include psychotherapists.
The Quebec Government has taken the position that when any additional professional groups are regulated they will have to be accommodated under one of the existing regulatory colleges/boards.
In December, 2005, the Office des Professions du Quebec released the report (Sharing our Ideas: Modernizing professional practice in mental health and human relations) of an expert committee whose mandate was to make recommendations to update professional regulation in the fields of mental health and human relations. It recommended that psychotherapy become a reserved act for physicians and psychologists, to be “shared” with members of certain other professions- namely, social workers, marriage and family therapists, career counsellors, psychoeducators, occupational therapists and nurses. The committee further recommended that current practitioners of psychotherapy who are not members of the named professions be grandparented, provided they meet certain qualifications. Members of the Ordre, certified as psychotherapists, are mentioned as one group that would be grandparented,
This legislation was passed in June 2009.
Documents of Interest
In B.C., a task group has been working towards regulation since 1998. It is entitled the Task Group for Counsellor Regulation in British Columbia.
This Task Group has had numerous contacts with the B.C. provincial government and the government has given a public commitment that if counsellors are successful in being regulated by legislation in BC it will be as a health profession and therefore it will be dealt with under the various legislative provisions that regulate the health professions. The Task Group has also adopted a novel professional title for the practitioners that would be included under any new regulatory college. It is Counselling Therapist. This reflects their creative effort to create a title that might prove satisfactory to all professionals that constitute the Task Group some of whom have the title therapist while others have the label counsellor.
The BC Task Group has also produced a major document entitled BC’s Entry-to-Practice Competency Profile for Counselling Therapists.
The developers of this extensive taxonomy of professional competencies have conducted validation studies with members of the various associations of the Task Group and with the assistance of CCA undertook a national validation in January 2006.
A very comprehensive history of the regulatory efforts is available on the BCACC website
On Monday, November 24, 2008 Bill 201, The Counselling Therapists Act, passed Final
Reading in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly. The Counselling Therapists Act provides title
protection, not practice protection, and will protect the titles Registered Counselling Therapist, Counselling Therapist, Registered Counselling Therapist Candidate and any derivations or abbreviations of those titles.
The passage of this Bill was the culmination of years of work by numerous people, with a very intense focus over the past year. 2009 will be a transition year, where regulations will be drafted and approved by government, and the Act proclaimed. When that task is completed, the Nova Scotia College of Counselling Therapists will be established.
In 2009, a federation was created for the purpose of advancing the statutory regulation of counselling in New Brunswick. The members of the board of directors of the Federation are comprised of three (3) representatives from each partner association.
There is a viable opportunity right now to participate in discussion with the government to have a bill introduced into the legislature in the fall of 2009.
The Prince Edward Island Counselling Association is pursuing regulation in the province.
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