Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows · Online · ਪੰਜਾਬੀ
Punjabi-speaking counselling in Maple Ridge
A small Punjabi-speaking community a bridge away from the largest one in the province, which is close enough to visit and too far for a weekly appointment.
Updated October 2, 2026
Punjabi-speaking counselling for Maple Ridge 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 Maple Ridge.
Close to Surrey on a map, far from it in a week
Maple Ridge residents gave Punjabi as their mother tongue in 2021: about 1.5% of the city
Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Profile: Maple Ridge (CSD 5915075)
In the 2021 Census 1,360 people in Maple Ridge gave Punjabi as their mother tongue, about 1.5% of residents, and 2,215 said they could hold a conversation in it. In Pitt Meadows the figures were 400 and 555. South Asian residents, 4,245 people or about 4.7%, are the largest racialized group in Maple Ridge.
Those are honest numbers for a real community, and a small one. Punjabi sits level with Tagalog and just behind Mandarin among the city’s non-English mother tongues. It is rarely the scale at which local services are offered in a language.
Surrey, over the Golden Ears Bridge and through Langley, is different in kind. In the same census 128,305 Surrey residents gave Punjabi as their mother tongue, more than ninety times the Maple Ridge figure, and it is where Punjabi-speaking counsellors with offices are concentrated.
From Maple Ridge, Surrey is the obvious answer to "where is there a Punjabi-speaking counsellor", and it is a genuine one. It is also over the Golden Ears Bridge, and Abbotsford is further up the valley. For a single visit that is nothing. For a weekly appointment after a working day that may already have crossed a bridge twice, it is a cost paid every week, on top of everything else.
Most working residents of Maple Ridge already leave the city every day; in the 2021 Census about six in ten of those with a usual place of work worked outside it. A Punjabi-language appointment in Surrey is then a second commute, in a different direction from the first.
A small community has its own pressure. Where the Punjabi-speaking circle is a few thousand people, someone usually knows someone, and the worry about being recognised in a waiting room is a reasonable one. A practice outside that circle, reached by video, has no waiting room to be recognised in.
Fraser Health runs the public route here, through the Maple Ridge Mental Health and Substance Use Centre, which accepts self-referral from adults. It is free and worth knowing about. If you would rather speak Punjabi there, ask whether an interpreter can join.
The wider picture for Maple Ridge, including the commute and what the public services offer, is on online counselling for Maple Ridge. The larger Punjabi-speaking picture one bridge south is on Punjabi counselling in Surrey.
Why virtual, specifically here
What changes when language stops being the barrier
No bridge to Surrey
A weekly Punjabi-language appointment without the Golden Ears Bridge, or a drive up the valley to Abbotsford, on either side of it.
Punjabi, English, or both
Use whichever language a thought arrives in. Nothing has to be settled at the start, and switching halfway through a sentence is fine.
Outside a small circle
In a community of a few thousand, overlapping families are the norm. A counsellor based elsewhere in BC is not part of that network, and nobody sees you arrive.
Fits around a commute
A session from a parked car at work or a closed room at home costs the session itself, not the afternoon around it. The booking calendar shows the counsellor’s real open times.
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 Maple Ridge
Before you book
Why not just go to Surrey?
You can, and if an office in Surrey suits you it is a reasonable choice; a consultation call would say so. From Maple Ridge the cost is the crossing: the Golden Ears Bridge there and back, every week, on top of a working week that may already include a bridge each day. Video takes that part out and leaves the counselling.
Is the Punjabi-speaking community in Maple Ridge large enough to have local services?
It is real and small. About 1.5% of Maple Ridge residents gave Punjabi as their mother tongue in the 2021 Census, roughly 1,360 people. Services in a language tend to follow numbers, which is why Punjabi-speaking counsellors with offices are concentrated in Surrey, Abbotsford and Vancouver.
Can sessions be in Punjabi for couples or EMDR?
Not at the moment. Punjabi-language sessions are individual counselling. Couples work and EMDR currently run in English or Tagalog, and individual sessions can be in Punjabi, English or a mix.
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 Maple Ridge
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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