Grounded in the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors’ commitment to public protection, the BCACC Board of Directors approved the Entry to Practice Competency (ETPC) Profile for Registered Clinical Counsellors in BC on January 28, 2023. Further to this, the Board has determined that the ETPCs will go into effect on November 1, 2023.
BCACC’s ETPC document not only principally aligns with the ETPC documents currently in use by the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and the Nova Scotia College of Counselling Therapists (NSCCT), but in doing so addresses RCC education and practice and provides the BC-specific perspective related to:
The expanded use of digital technologies to provide counselling/therapeutic services to a greater number of clients seeking services from RCCs;
Identification of competencies specific to equity, diversity, and inclusion; and
Identification of competencies specific to Indigenous cultural safety, cultural humility, and anti-racism in BC’s health care system.
The ETPCs do not represent a protocol or a listing of what the RCC must do in practice; rather, they represent what they must be able to do when necessary to address the situation at hand and to practise safely, competently, and ethically across a variety of practice settings, regardless of the particular setting in which they are employed. In any practice situation the order of use and the significance of the competencies will vary according to context. They may not be all-inclusive and the order in which or how often they are applied will be dependent on the individual’s circumstances and/or the RCC’s practice context.
In the run up to the in-effect date, BCACC will be busy developing educational opportunities, resources, and tools and making these available to support RCCs and others to better understand and apply the ETPCs to their particular situation and context. The competencies are intended to guide understanding.
If you have questions about the ETPC document, please contact BCACC by emailing [email protected] or phoning (250) 595-4448 ext. 235.
