Minister of Veterans Affairs and Minister for La Francophonie kick off Mental Health Week by announcing support for initiatives to help Veterans and their families with PTSD.

“Our Government recognizes the seriousness of PTSD among Veterans and Canadian Armed Forces personnel and its impact on their families, and is committed to supporting them,” said Minister Blaney. “As Mental Health Week begins in Canada, I am proud to support these important initiatives which will assist us in addressing the mental health needs of those who sacrificed so much for their country.”

Read the article

Time is running out for a BC suicide prevention organization.

The Crisis Line Association of BC, that operates two support line networks, has only another month to secure sustained annual funding.

The networks enhance immediate access to 24-hour crisis line services for anyone in the province with suicide or mental health issues or concerns.  Without the funding the networks will cease to operate after June 30th.

CLABC developed the networks launched 1800SUICIDE in 2004, followed by the 310Mental Health Support Line in 2008.

Click here to read The Federation of Community Social Services of BC’s response to the recently released report from BC’s Representative for Children and Youth, Still Waiting: First-hand Experiences with Youth Mental Health Services in BC.

We welcome and encourage all BCACC members to join us as we celebrate our members, volunteers and dedicated supporters.

When:  Friday, April 5 2013

Where:  The Coast Plaza Hotels & Suites at Stanley Park – Denman Room
1763 Comox Street (near Denman), Vancouver, BC

What Time: Annual Business Meeting 3:30pm – 5:00pm
Reception & Members’ Forum 5:00pm – 7:00pm

We look forward to meeting you there!

REGISTER YOUR INTENT TO ATTEND

After what seemed like an eternity to us at Head Office, we are proud to announce that our new Member Portal is now officially live.

We hope that our new system will provide you a more intuitive platform for updating your contact information and managing your public listing (if you have one enabled**).

Other features include, easy event registrations, access to the “Weekly Continuing Competency and Classifieds”, legal documents, commonly used forms and information on Regional events.

Members – an email should have been sent to you with your temporary login information**.  As always, we would love to hear your feedback on how the Portal works for you.

** Members: If you are not listed on the “Find a Counsellor Tool” or if you have not received an email containing your temporary password, please contact Marci at marci@bc-counsellors.org .

Dear Members:

On April 1, 2013, British Columbia will discontinue the 12% Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) system.  From that point on, BC Association of Clinical Counsellors is required to charge only the 5% GST for services.

What tax do RCCs charge?

Many counsellors might be wondering if they need to register for a Provincial Sales Tax number.  It is our understanding that counselling services provided by Registered Clinical Counsellors are subject to the 5% Goods and Services Tax (GST) only, and not the 7% Provincial Sales Tax (PST).  Thus, one would not need to register for PST in BC.

It is also our understanding that if a business is currently registered with a CRA business number to collect and remit HST, then  that business is already registered to collect and remit GST (i.e., you do not need to register for a new business number with CRA).

The Canada Revenue Agency has provided this document to assist business owners and consumers in the transition to the GST.

We hope this information is helpful to you.  As always, if you have specific questions with respect to taxation, we recommend you contact your accountant or the Canada Revenue Agency.

Thank you,

BC Association of Clinical Counsellors

Dear Members,

As we approach the renewal season here at head office, we want to take a moment to tell you about some exciting changes that are coming to the BCACC.

We have listened to your feedback, and we will be changing our Member Management Platform at the beginning of December 2012.

What does this mean for you?

The Member Management Platform is the system you use to update your profiles, and manage your referral information.

Features include:

• An intuitive and user-friendly member profile system
• A robust and detailed referral system
• Online event registration
• A system to track continuing education credits

What does this mean for head office?

The new Member Management Platform will simplify our workflow. It will help us to serve your needs more efficiently, and to reduce our environmental footprint.

Patience and Empathy

As we switch to the new platform in the coming weeks, we respectfully ask for your patience and empathy.  We will expedite the changeover efficiently, but we do anticipate a few glitches along the way.

As always, we are here if we can answer any questions.

Thank you,

BC Association of Clinical Counsellors

Peter MacKay says the funding will pay for at least 51 positions that would include psychiatrists, psychologists, mental health nurses, social workers and addictions counsellors.

Read More on this:  Military to devote $11.4-million in effort to boost mental health care programs