Shifting away from face-to-face counselling a challenging but welcomed transition amidst pandemic

“You are online and someone is sharing with you their most intimate feelings and challenges and struggles, it’s so important for me to be present with that person, to interact with them in a way that I can actually communicate and we can work on that connection.”

The Community Counselling Centre (CCC), located inside the Gateway Centre at 1811 Victoria Street in Prince George, has been Winfield’s site for her practicum. Starting there in May, she’s gone through, along with all of the other current UNBC counselling students at the CCC, a series of changes thrown her way due to the pandemic.

“I did start in May where we had online sessions and then we were able to, in the latter part of June when COVID-19 started the phasing of the reopening, we were able to have our sessions face-to-face,” said Winfield. “That was very interesting, having first initially started with our clients on telehealth and then going to in-person was such a different transition, but a welcomed transition. You’re able to see the body language, and really feel the energy; me to them and them to me.”

The centre has since had to return to their online sessions due to the rise in COVID cases across the province, leaving interim director Jillian Wagg calling to the public for help ahead of this year’s Miracle on Third.

“Because of COVID, we’ve really had to shift our whole model of service delivery to these online and phone services, which entails a lot of costs with programming, technical issues, and internet costs,” said Wagg.

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.

If you want to donate, you can head to the Community Counselling Centre’s website.

The 3rd annual Miracle on Third will be held on Thursday, December 3, 2020.

by Ethan Ready

Shifting away from face-to-face counselling a challenging but welcomed transition amidst pandemic

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