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Please join our CIRCLE OF SUPPORT and CARE PROGRAM.
Orchard Valley Counselling Services Inc. seeks your generous support to help us continue to provide our affordable mental health programs in Kelowna and West Kelowna as contributing members of our CIRCLE OF SUPPORT and CARE PROGRAM. We would be very grateful if you would join us in this endeavor and help ensure that persons in our community have access to the psychological, counselling services and support they need by contributing a gift of $50, $100, $250 or more to OVCS at this year’s end.
Each year, we assist more than 200 individuals, couples and families. Suffering from abuse, neglect, inequity, alienation from others, the aftermaths of trauma, as well as anxiety, depression and loss, they come to us, yearning to feel more comfortable with themselves, their loved ones and their lives. When they join us, they often begin a journey and a process they could not have even imagined, one that often ripples with positive effects throughout their lives. With your support as a donor, we can continue to provide them with the support they need not only to survive, but thrive.
A thoughtful, caring and skilled registered clinical counsellor or social worker can offer so much to someone who is suffering, especially when their struggles are emotional and psychological. Therapeutic support and guidance offered by someone with an investment in our well-being can be both empowering and relieving, inspiring even those who’ve lost confidence in themselves and their lives to dream again. It can even make the unimaginable possible.
Stats on Mental Health
According to Canadian Mental Health Association, (2019), “Mental illness indirectly affects all Canadians at some time through a family member, friend or colleague.”
- In any given year, 1 in 5 people in Canada will personally experience a mental health problem or illness.
- Mental illness affects people of all ages, education, income levels, and cultures.
- Approximately 8% of adults will experience major depression at some time in their lives.
- About 1% of Canadians will experience bipolar disorder (or “manic depression”) (CMHA, 2019).
How common is it?
- By age 40, about 50% of the population will have or have had a mental illness.
- Schizophrenia affects 1% of the Canadian population.
- Anxiety disorders affect 5% of the household population, causing mild to severe impairment.
- Suicide accounts for 24% of all deaths among 15-24 year olds and 16% among 25-44 year olds.
- Suicide is one of the leading causes of death in both men and women from adolescence to middle age.
- The mortality rate due to suicide among men is four times the rate among women (CMHA, 2019).
A CBC reports in 2013 suggests, that 600,000 Canadians struggle with mental health concerns that are not having these needs met. About 17 per cent of the population 15 or older reported having had a mental health care need in the past 12 months, the agency found. Of these:
- 67 per cent said their needs were met.
- 21 per cent said their needs were partially met.
- 12 per cent said their needs were unmet (CBC News, 2013).
In the Okanagan Area, many cannot access adequate health care, including counselling services suitable for and tailored to their cultural and socioeconomic needs. Fortunately, with its commitment to affordability, and multi-cultural corps of mixture of trained clinicians, Orchard Valley Counselling Services Inc. is uniquely poised to meet these needs.
In addition to the 1800+ sessions we have provided this past year, we also served our community in many other ways, providing:
- Clinical Counselling to persons with histories of severe trauma
- Expressive arts therapy to children
- Counselling to students at risk for poverty
We also offered:
- A staff of more than 7 well-trained, culturally sensitive clinicians
- Counselling Services in multiple languages
- Services in more than 2 different satellite offices throughout the Central Okanagan Valley Area.
Our therapists, all pursuing advanced training and professional licensure as mental health clinicians, come from throughout Canada, and even abroad, to join our organization. Drawn to our agency because of our holistic approach, and emphasis on helping clinicians find a solid livelihood in their vocation of helping others, many aspire to work on the cutting edge of health care as well as devote themselves to social justice efforts to make that care as accessible and relevant as possible. You could say they are the heart of our agency, trying to repair the world, one person at a time.
Please consider joining us in this endeavor by donating as much as you can. Your gift will help us continue to provide caring, compassionate, culturally-relevant services to hundreds of people in need – and because Orchard Valley Counselling Services Inc. is a charitable for-profit, all donations are tax-deductible.
Donating is SIMPLE. Just click the link below or go to our website at orchardvalleycounselling.ca and donate ON-LINE using your credit card, or PayPal account.
To make a contribution simply click HERE.
If you cannot contribute money at this time, please consider pledging a gift for the future. By pledging, you can make a contribution in incremental monthly payments, deducted directly from your checking account or credit card.
Click Link To Donate
As a member of Caring Heart, we’ve become intimately acquainted with the exemplary services it provides to our community. I hope you will wish to join our Circle of Support and Care Program to ensure its work continues. Your gift will help us continue to provide exemplary, affordable care to hundreds of people in need.
In Appreciation,
Christina Fenske
Clinical Director
Other Reasons to Consider Giving
Innovation: Caring Heart was founded in 2015 and was one of the first programs in the Okanagan area to focus on the joint needs of early-career counsellors to both prepare for licensure and develop the critical business skills needed for success in private practice. In addition to providing important vocational support, we assist clinicians to develop and incubate their practices as viable businesses while they are still interns.
Impact: Since its inception, our organization has grown to provide counselling services to approximately 1000s of individuals, couples, and families each year, the majority from economically vulnerable, at-risk or marginalized communities. More than 100 clinicians have participated in Caring Heart’s program, successfully launching their practices.
Focus: Caring Heart focuses on well-rounded and thoughtful clinicians. While we support our interns in developing their expertise in the practice of traditional forms of counselling, we also encourage them to consider and attend to the broader contexts of their clients’ lives, including the influences of inter-generational trauma, poverty and discrimination. They also are encouraged to understand the complex interplay of mind-body and spirit in their clients’ well-being.
Financial Empowerment: While early career practitioners in other fields, such as medicine, receive an income during their professional internships, most mental health practitioners do not have access to paid internships. Many training programs offer little or no compensation, placing a profound economic burden that requires most interns to hold multiple jobs while preparing for licensure. Those that do, pay only a nominal fee, or a small percentage of the client fees generated by the intern.
As a result, many interns struggle with financial stress as they balance the monumental task of gaining their 3000 hours of clinical experience, while also surviving financially in the Okanagan area. In contrast, as a for-profit, Caring Heart is committed to providing our interns with the potential to earn a viable wage, based on how many clients they see. Philosophically, and in practice, we are dedicated to allocating as much of our client earnings as possible to our interns. After covering our basic operating expenses, all of our income is returned to our interns for their livelihoods.
Community Commitment: As part of our training program, each of our Associates is required to see at least three low-income clients at a significantly reduced fee. At any one time, we provide an average of 400 individuals, couples, or families with access to very low fee counselling in the $85 – $100 range compared to the standard market rate of services for $120 to $250/session.
A Focus on Social Justice: As part of our Associate program, we offer training workshops to support our clinicians to develop their multicultural competencies. We also strive to adopt policies and procedures within our organization to promote sensitivity to issues of diversity and social justice. We continuously seek to engage in strategic program development to better serve our community, seeking ways to create more accessibility to services for marginalized, at-risk or low-income persons.
Thank you for your support. A gift to Caring Heart is an investment in the health and well-being of your community.
Contact us today for more questions at admin@ovcs.ca.
