Counselling support for BC employers and HR

At a glance for HR

The facts a benefits page or a manager’s toolkit needs, in one place. The fees and the consultation are read from the booking system, and where sessions are possible from the counsellors’ registration and insurance, so this list changes when they do. There is a printable one-page version, and for a staff room or reception desk, four cut-out cards with the free consultation and the crisis lines.

Who

Registered Clinical Counsellors, by secure video. Sessions are possible in British Columbia.

Languages

English, Tagalog or Punjabi.

First step

A free 15-minute consultation, booked by the employee.

Fees

Individual sessions $140 for 50 minutes; couples sessions $175. Every fee is on the pricing page.

Payment

The card is taken at booking. Cancelling or moving a paid session with at least 24 hours’ notice gets a full refund. With less than 24 hours’ notice, or for a no-show, 50% of the fee is kept.

The receipt

The counsellor’s name, designation and registration number, the date and the fee: what a plan needs to reimburse. The employee claims it; the practice does not bill an employer or a plan.

Plan wording to look for

“Registered Clinical Counsellor” (RCC) or “Canadian Certified Counsellor” (CCC) on the practitioner list. Coverage depends on the plan; one that names only psychologists will not reimburse these sessions.

What the employer receives

Nothing, unless the employee gives written consent. With it, confirmation of attendance on given dates, and nothing about content.

What it is not

Not an EAP, not a fitness-to-work assessor, and not a party to the employment relationship. No employer contract and no invoice for an individual’s sessions.

In a crisis

Not a crisis service. Call or text 9-8-8, any hour, or 310-6789 for BC Mental Health Support. In immediate danger, 9-1-1.

How counselling gets paid for in a BC workplace

• Employee and family assistance program (EFAP), A contracted provider, a set number of short-term sessions, free to the employee, confidential from the employer. The most under-used benefit in most workplaces. This practice is not an EFAP provider; the comparison of EFAP and private counselling is on its own page.
• Extended health plan, Reimburses eligible practitioners up to an annual maximum. Whether a Registered Clinical Counsellor is eligible is a plan-design choice you or your broker made. If it is not, the single most useful change an employer can make is to add RCC and CCC to the practitioner list at renewal.
• Health spending account, Pays only expenses the CRA accepts as medical expenses, and the CRA’s list of authorized practitioners does not yet include counsellors in BC, so many administrators decline an RCC receipt. Ask the administrator before relying on it. A wellness or lifestyle spending account is broader and can fund RCC sessions, as a taxable benefit to the employee.
• Paid sick leave, The Employment Standards Act entitles most employees to paid sick days, and mental-health conditions count. Making it clear that a counselling appointment is a legitimate use is worth saying out loud.
• Direct payment, Possible only through a structure that keeps the employer out of the clinical relationship, such as a wellness account. The practice does not invoice employers for an individual's sessions.

What you may ask, and what you may not

An employer is entitled to functional information: that an employee cannot perform their duties or needs an accommodation, what the limitations are, and when this will be reviewed. That comes from a physician or nurse practitioner, not from a counsellor.

An employer is not entitled to a diagnosis, to treatment details, or to anything said in a session. Asking is a human-rights problem as well as a trust problem. If a leave is in play, the stress leave guide sets out the routes and the workplace mental-health resource covers accommodation and return to work in more depth.

The duty to accommodate under the BC Human Rights Code applies to mental-health disabilities. In practice it means adjusting hours, duties or location where that is reasonable, and documenting the conversation. It does not mean diagnosing or managing the condition.

Stay-at-work services in BC: who provides them

A stay-at-work service keeps an employee with a health condition working, with adjustments, instead of off on a full leave: reduced hours for a period, changed duties or schedule, and treatment arranged alongside the work. A return-to-work service is the same thing from the other end, after a leave. In BC they come from four places, and which one applies depends on why the employee is struggling and what the employer has bought.

• WorkSafeBC, for an accepted claim, Where the injury is work-caused and the claim is accepted, WorkSafeBC coordinates return-to-work support and contracts Return to Work Support Services providers around the province. That is inside the claim; an employer does not buy it. WCB psychological injury claims sets out when a mental-health injury is one.
• Your group benefits insurer, Many group disability carriers sell stay-at-work or early-intervention services to plan sponsors, usually tied to the short-term disability plan. Your broker can say whether your contract includes it and what it costs to add.
• An occupational health or disability-management provider, Larger employers contract one directly, or run it in-house, to design graduated returns and modified duties with the employee’s physician.
• Your EFAP, Some EFAP contracts include manager consultation and short-term counselling aimed at keeping someone at work. Check the contract before assuming it does.

Where counselling sits beside a stay-at-work plan

A stay-at-work plan is a workplace arrangement, not care. One that changes the hours and leaves the cause untouched tends to become a leave a few months later, which is why a good plan names who is providing the treatment. This practice is not a stay-at-work or disability-management provider and does not design plans or report to employers. What it is: a place an employee on such a plan can see a Registered Clinical Counsellor privately, by video, booked and paid by them and claimed on their own plan where it covers counselling. The employee’s side of the arrangement, including what to ask before agreeing to one, is in mental health and work in BC.

What this practice can offer an employer

• Clarity, in advance, A short exchange by email about how employees would reach the practice, what a receipt contains, and what the plan needs to list. No contract and no cost. Choose “An employer or HR enquiry” on the contact form.
• Attendance confirmation, With the employee's written consent, confirmation that they attended on given dates. Nothing about content, and never without consent.
• Sessions that fit shifts, Video sessions, times that depend on the counsellor and show on the booking page, and no travel time, which is the practical difference for shift, rotational and remote workers.
• Three languages, English, Punjabi and Tagalog, which matters in workforces where the person who most needs to talk is least likely to do it in a second language. For Fraser Valley and Surrey employers it may be the most useful line on this page: a meaningful share of the region’s workforce carries its hardest conversations in Punjabi, and English-only support quietly leaves them out.
• A straight answer about fit, If an employee needs something this practice does not provide, a psychiatric assessment, an occupational-health opinion, a crisis service, they will be told so and pointed there.

What a manager says, and what comes after

• Train the sentence, not the diagnosis, “You seem like you are carrying a lot. What would help?” Noticing, asking and not prescribing is the whole skill. Everything after that sentence belongs to the employee and to professionals.
• Point, do not fix, Know the concrete options before the day you need them: the EFAP if there is one, the plan for ongoing counselling, sick days without interrogation, and a booking page the person can use without telling anyone.
• Leave it with them, Once you have pointed, the decision is theirs. A manager who checks back on whether someone booked has turned an offer into a task.

If you have no EAP and no benefits plan

• Paid sick days already exist, Under the Employment Standards Act, after 90 days of employment, five paid and three unpaid illness or injury days each calendar year, and mental health counts. The leave templates set out the rest, with sources.
• Time off for appointments, Letting someone move a shift or take an hour for a health appointment, without asking what it is, is the cheapest support there is. Video sessions add no travel time to it.
• A health or wellness spending account, The smallest structure that lets an employer pay toward counselling without seeing who used it: a fixed amount a year per employee, claimed privately against receipts. Ask the provider whether a Registered Clinical Counsellor’s receipt qualifies under the account you choose.
• What to ask for in a first plan, Registered Clinical Counsellors and Canadian Certified Counsellors on the practitioner list, a mental-health maximum that is not shared with massage and physiotherapy, and the price of adding an EFAP alongside.
• The free routes, in the meantime, 9-8-8 by call or text, 310-6789 for BC Mental Health Support, and the community and sliding-scale options on low-cost counselling in BC.

What it cannot offer

It is not an EAP and does not run one. It does not provide fitness-to-work assessments, independent medical examinations, or reports to employers or insurers about an employee's condition. It does not accept employer referrals that bypass the employee: the person books, or nobody does.

Those limits are the scope of a Registered Clinical Counsellor, and the practice would rather state them than be found out later to have implied otherwise.

Three things that change whether the benefit gets used

• Say what the EFAP actually covers, In a sentence, from a manager, in a team meeting: it is free, it is confidential, HR does not see who uses it, and it is for ordinary problems. Uptake moves.
• Fix the practitioner list at renewal, If the plan lists psychologists only, most counselling in BC is unreimbursable under it. Adding RCC and CCC is a small change with a large effect.
• Make time off for appointments normal, A counselling appointment is a health appointment. Managers who treat it as one, without asking what it is for, are doing the most useful thing on this page.

Paste this into your benefits page

If you keep a benefits page, an intranet or a manager’s toolkit, this paragraph can go in as it stands. The link is tagged so the practice can see that a visit came from an HR page, and nothing about who.