the Comox Valley · Online · ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
Punjabi-speaking counselling in Courtenay
The Comox Valley’s Punjabi-speaking community is small, and so is the chance of finding a counsellor in the valley who works in Punjabi.
Updated October 2, 2026
Punjabi-speaking counselling for Courtenay is with Savneet Singh, RCC, by secure video, in English or Punjabi, or a mix of both. Individual sessions are $140 for 50 minutes, after a free 30-minute consultation, and whether an extended health plan reimburses it depends on the plan.
Who you would be working with
Savneet Singh, RCC: Registered Clinical Counsellor, working in Punjabi and English by secure video. She works with anxiety, depression, trauma and attachment, personality disorders.
There is also a page for Savneet and Courtenay.
What is actually available in the Comox Valley
people in the Courtenay census agglomeration gave Punjabi as their mother tongue in 2021: a small community, a long way from where Punjabi-speaking counsellors are concentrated
Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile: Courtenay (census agglomeration 943)
That is a small community, about three in every thousand residents of the Courtenay census agglomeration, which centres on Courtenay, Comox and Cumberland, and this page does not pretend otherwise. In the same census 625 residents identified as South Asian. The figures are in the Statistics Canada 2021 Census Profile cited below.
Small does not make the need smaller. It changes its shape. In Surrey the difficulty is anonymity inside a large community; here it is the opposite, visibility inside a small one, where the few families who share a language are likely to know each other.
Punjabi-speaking counsellors in BC are concentrated in the Lower Mainland. From the Comox Valley, seeing one in person has meant the highway south and a ferry each way, for a fifty-minute appointment.
Island Health’s Comox Valley Mental Health & Substance Use team in Courtenay is the public route for adults, and it takes adults by walk-in or by phone, with no referral. Using it does not rule out private counselling; the two can run at the same time.
Courtenay and Comox have private counsellors, and for general work in English the valley is not badly served. What it is unlikely to offer is a session held in Punjabi: in a community of a few hundred speakers, that is the gap this page is about.
That gap is wider than it looks from outside. A conversation about a parent’s expectations, a marriage arranged or resisted, or money owed to family back home happens in one language and gets translated into another for an English-only session. Something is lost in that translation every time, usually the part that mattered.
The rest of what shapes access here, postings, the islands and a valley where people know each other, is set out on online counselling for the Comox Valley. Further south, most of the Island’s Punjabi-speaking community lives in Saanich, and Punjabi-speaking counselling for Saanich makes its own case.
Why virtual, specifically here
What changes when language stops being the barrier
No ferry for a language
Punjabi-speaking counsellors are concentrated on the mainland, so in person has meant the highway south and a sailing. By video the session happens in any private room in the valley with a connection.
Punjabi, English, or both
Switch whenever the conversation calls for it. Nobody keeps track of which language a sentence was in, and terms like extended health tend to come out in English anyway.
Nobody local in the room
In a community this size, a counsellor from outside the valley is not part of anybody’s family or social circle, and there is no waiting room to be seen in.
Individual counselling
Sessions in Punjabi are one-to-one. Couples counselling and EMDR currently run in English or Tagalog, and that is said plainly before anybody books.
Not sure whether this is the right fit? A free 30-minute consultation is the fastest way to find out, and it is a perfectly good outcome if the answer turns out to be a referral somewhere else.
Questions from Courtenay
Before you book
Is there really nobody in the Comox Valley who counsels in Punjabi?
Not one this page can point to. Punjabi-speaking counsellors in BC are concentrated in the Lower Mainland, which is why a video session is the realistic route from Courtenay, Comox or Cumberland rather than a second-best one.
Can my spouse and I come together in Punjabi?
Not for couples work at the moment: couples sessions currently run in English or Tagalog. Individual counselling is available in Punjabi, and the free 30-minute consultation is the place to talk through what would help most.
Will my extended health cover this?
Plans that list an RCC usually reimburse a video session on the same terms as in person, but this depends on the plan. Ask: are virtual sessions with an RCC eligible, and on the same maximum?
More in the full list of frequently asked questions, or see fees and extended-health coverage. There is also a full page in Punjabi (ਪੰਜਾਬੀ).
Counselling in Punjabi, from Courtenay
A free 30-minute consultation over secure video, in Punjabi or English. No pressure, no commitment, and no obligation to book a session afterward.
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