Student idea leads to 11 years of student-driven counselling services

“This is a beautiful and empowering model because community people are teaching our counsellors,” said Dr. O’Neill. “Counsellors are giving back to the community, but community members are helping them. The empowering piece that comes out of that piece is huge.”

Dr. Brenda Griffiths is a psychiatrist in Prince George and has seen the positive impacts the Community Counselling Centre has had on the city.

“You know it’s a win, win, win because we’ve got a great education and that’s great recruitment for the North. Having been here for this long, I’ve had times where I’ve seen positions go unfilled because we can’t get the staff. That’s changed, it’s made an obvious difference. I’ve been very lucky to be able to work with the grads and they’ve really contributed a lot to the community.”

Dr. Griffiths reiterated the model at the CCC is what sets it apart.

“A lot of the patients feel good that they’re contributing to teaching people who are learning for the very first time the kind of struggles people deal with. There’s kind of an enthusiasm that perhaps some of the old guard doesn’t quite have, so there’s a lot of value in seeing some of these students. They’re really getting a good education.”

Even operating on a shoestring budget, the centre has provided long-term counselling to 238 clients in the past year and has been the training ground for 102 students since its conception.

This year’s edition of Miracle on Third will have the Community Counselling Centre serving as the beneficiary, with donations being accepted online.

The Community Counselling Centre serves two important functions here in the north: one, they provide low cost, low barrier long term mental health services for community members. Secondly, they train masters level counselling students from UNBC with high-quality teaching and training in mental health.

by Ethan Ready

Student idea leads to 11 years of student-driven counselling services

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