Alberta/NWT Chapter This report covers the period of: November

Alberta/NWT Chapter
This report covers the period of: November 2013 – April 2014
Submitted by: Nicole Imgrund, Alberta/NWT Chapter President
Chapter Mandate
The Alberta/NWT Chapter is a community of diverse professionals, identified as counsellors and
psychotherapists, who facilitate professional development and support as well the advancement
of the profession within Alberta and the Northwest Territories. The objectives of the Chapter are
to promote an identity of those in the counselling field; connect with practitioners in the
counselling field in Alberta and the NWT, and to develop connections with various counsellingrelated associations in Alberta.
Chapter Officers
President
President-Elect
Secretary –Treasurer
Coordinator:
Professional Development
Coordinator:
Advocacy and Professional Identity
Coordinator: Communication
Coordinator: Regulation
Regional Director: NWT
Regional Director: Peace River Region
Regional Director: Ft. McMurray N.E
Regional Director: Edmonton
Regional Director: Calgary
Regional Director: Southern Albert
Regional Director: Red Deer
Student Liaisons
Nicole Imgrund
Kathy Offet-Gartner
Carol-Anne Haring
Jan Regehr
Yinka Marcus
Nina Sangra
Vacant
Julie Charlebois-Heide
Vacant
Judi Malone
Evelyn Lupul
Yinka Marcus, Interim
Barbara Douglas
Carol-Anne Haring, Interim
Gina Ko
Membership
337 members (91 new members in the past year)
Chapter Finances
Balance $4815.78
Chapter Board Activities
We continue to face new challenges related to our rapid growth as a Chapter. We
instituted a new Board meeting structure this year to improve efficiency and free
Executive members to focus on more long-term goals. We established a sub-committee to
assist with regional conference planning. We also established monthly meetings of the
Regional Directors and Student Liaisons for support and planning related to regional
development. We are still forming an assessment of the new structure. Meeting in smaller
groups helped us to delve more deeply into our mandate, but communication was a
challenge when there was overlap between the positions. We will make further revisions
to the process before our new Board commences work in the fall.
The Board voted to postpone our 3rd AGM from April to September 2014. It was decided
that it would be beneficial to stagger our annual AGM and conference with the national
conference.
There has been ongoing study and discussion related to the boundaries of the smaller
regions within the AB/NWT Region. We will continue to request feedback from
members to understand how they identify themselves geographically and in terms of their
collegial network. We are hoping to have the boundaries set by our fall AGM.
Much work and time has been invested in planning our upcoming Alberta/NWT Chapter
Education Day & AGM in Edmonton, on September 26th, 2014:
"Connect and Refresh: Revitalizing Counsellors and Counselling"
Speakers: Dr. Jane Simington and Dr. Don Melnychuck
In March, CCPA President Blythe Shepard met with a group of Chapter members in
Calgary for a question and answer session. Her informative and insightful responses were
greatly appreciated by members. We would love to have her join another regional
gathering at some point during her term as President.
The Chapter took an intentional step back this year from direct engagement with other
associations regarding regulation. After a long process of discernment, we understood the
first and most important steps on the long road towards regulation to be connecting and
nurturing relationships between our own Chapter members. Any move towards regulation
in the future will depend upon the strength and unity of our membership. We need to
ensure a solid foundation of relationships, professional identity, and understanding of our
own needs and goals before extending the conversation outwards. That said, we have
continued to plan for future steps towards regulation. Barbara Mcallum and Blythe
Shepard have been very helpful in answering our questions and providing information.
We have also requested a forum to communicate with other regional Chapters for
resources and guidance about how the process could unfold, with the understanding that
the legislation and political context of each region is unique.
As we have grown, we have also encountered the gaps in our processes and regulations as
a Chapter. We will introduce further by-law revisions in the fall to address some of these
gaps.
This was the first year that we elected Student Liaisons to our Chapter Board. After
learning there is a national student representative program which has positions at each of
the institutions, there was much deliberation about the role of our own Student Liaisons.
Because few of the national Student Representative positions had been filled, we first
directed our efforts to offering presentations and contacting the institutions to fill these
positions. We are now transitioning our Student Liaisons to focus on providing forums
for the student representatives to connect with one another. The purpose is to gather their
questions, concerns and observations and inform the Chapter Board of how we can best
serve our student members.
The Board has produced two newsletters this year, as well as additional professional
development flyers and listserv messages to our members.
The Board has planned two events for Alberta/NWT Chapter members at the national
conference in Victoria in May. We will host a workshop which will engage members in a
World Cafe discussion format. There will also be an informal gathering of Chapter
members off-site after the opening reception.
Future Priorities
Increase membership: There are currently 710 CCPA members in our region, but only
337 belong to the Regional Chapter. Our gaol is for this number to be the same within the
next year. We have been strategizing about how to encourage all members to join the
Chapter. One strategy has to been to send all Chapter communication to the entire
membership (not just the Chapter members). We are hoping that awareness of the breadth
of activity the Chapter is doing on behalf of members and CCPA in AB/NWT will
encourage membership. We are also building other incentives into our members services,
such as free advertising for PD events and Classifieds, reduced rates for our annual
conference, etc. While we understand the goal of having EVERY member in the region
belong to the Chapter is a lofty one, we see it as integral to our goals related to
professional advocacy and regulation. It is essential that the Chapter can speak as a
representative to the members of CCPA in the Region, not just a proportion of them.
Regional Development: We are supporting our Regional Directors to find ways to
connect with members in their area. We recently provided a list of members' names,
location and e-mail addresses to each of our Regional Directors for the purpose of
making more direct and consistent contact with those in their area. Guidelines for
appropriate use and protection of privacy were also provided to the Directors. We are
hoping this will help us meet some goals related to our mandate of connecting members
with one another, which is the need most often expressed by our members.
Member Directory: Our members are interested in connecting with one another for
consultation, peer supervision, and support. We have asked the national office for help in
responding to this need. We have facilitated these connections as a Board, but we must
move towards a system by which members can contact one another directly. It has
become too time consuming for Board members and we trust that if given the resources,
members could make the best choices for themselves about how and how to connect. We
envision an on-line directory with is only accessible to members and contains both
contact information and areas of expertise/interest. We look forward to an opportunity to
work with the national office on such a project.
Create a New Chapter Website: A proposal has been submitted to national office staff
and the Board of Directors for the Alberta/NWT Chapter to create a website that
members could access directly or linked from the chapter page of the CCPA website. The
purpose is provide members with better access to an updated list of PD events and
classifieds in the region, as well as Chapter information and updates, blogs and forums,
etc. We see the creation of a website as a means to accomplishing many goals related to
connecting and serving the members of the Chapter. It could also be a valuable resource
in promoting CCPA and the professional of counselling and psychotherapy in the region.
Third Party Billing: The second most asserted need of our members is for equitable
access to third party billing in their practices. We intend to learn more about work that
has been done by the national association and other Chapters (such as Regional Chapters
and the Private Practice Chapter) towards this end. We are seeking guidance about how
we may contribute to the efforts in our own region. We have wondered about a strategy
that focuses on educating employers in our region of the professional standards of the
CCC designation and the and benefits of offering the services of CCC's to their
employees.
Understanding the Needs of our Members in the NWT: The Chapter Board has had
very little contact with our members in the NWT. In the next year, we hope to gain a
better understanding of the needs of these members and appropriate, meaningful
responses to them.
This fall will bring a period of significant transition for our Chapter Board. Most of our
members will reach the end of their term. We are planning for this transition by
anticipating the goals of the new Board in the next 2 years and ensuring the best possible
structure to meet these goals. Position descriptions will be rewritten in consultation with
those currently holding the positions. As so much of our mandate has unfolded over the
course of their term, we are in a much better position now to understand the scope and
purpose of the positions. We hope this will also help us to find members who have not
only the passion, but the particular experience, skills and knowledge base to effectively
and creatively fulfill their position mandate. Some of the roles may require more
expertise and political savvy than we have needed to this point. As we start in earnest to
build relationships with other associations, advocate for the profession of counselling and
psychotherapy in Alberta and the NWT and consider regulation, we will need to ensure
we have appropriately experienced members to represent us. As the time commitment to
Chapter Board work has increased exponentially with our membership and the scope of
our mandate, we need to be clear about expectations and provide appropriate support to
Board members. Building strong, supportive relationships and good communication will
be vital to an optimally functioning and successful Board in the next term. We have a lot
to celebrate in what we have worked to achieve together in the previous year...and we
have also learned a lot for the benefit of colleagues who form the new configuration of
the Board!

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