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HAY RIVER
Community Counselling Services in Hay River has undergone drastic changes in the past few months, but according to Joletta Larocque, director of community and continuing care, it has come out stronger on the other side.

"This is a positive thing for the community," she said. "Before, we were doing supportive counselling and psychological education, whereas now we are treating the underlying conditions."

This past October, the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority decided to bring the counselling services standards in line with the rest of the NWT and require staff to have at least a master's degree in the field.

That decision proved to be controversial when the four existing staff members left the office despite being offered positions that fit their experience and professional accreditations, said Larocque.

Since then, the authority has hired six counsellors - three mental health and addictions counsellors with at least master's degrees and two community wellness workers, along with Sue MacKay, a clinical supervisor. Of the six, four were Northern hires, including two from Hay River.

"It's really fortunate that we managed to hire locally as much as possible," said Larocque. "They share a culture and it helps them provide a better service."

MacKay is also no stranger to the North, having worked most recently in Lutsel K'e before moving to Hay River.

"This is the staffing model that is recommended and that we've been moving towards in the territory for a few years now," she said. "I'm really proud of this new team, how they work together and are working on more outreach programming."

This past fall, the primary concerns for most residents, whether they were receiving counselling or not, were the long waiting list to get an appointment and the manner in which clients were transferred to other professionals when the ones they had been regularly seeing left.

While Larocque did concede there was a longer waiting list - approximately 100 people - in January and February, that same list was between 60 and 80 people in the months before. It started dropping as of March when counsellors were hired full time and fell to zero in April.

"There is currently no wait list for addictions or mental health counselling," she said.

MacKay added all new clients, whether recommended by a physician or self-referred, are seen within about a week.

As for the transfer of patients, Larocque maintained the office did the best it could to serve as many as possible, but some choices had to be made to prioritize groups such as hospital patients and those in counselling who were most at risk.

Georgina Fabian was one of the individuals whose case was transferred with what she felt at the time was little care. But now she is pleased with the results of the changes and said she thinks the new staff members are far more effective at treating underlying trauma than their predecessors.

"When I was going through a difficult time, there was no one there for me," said Fabian of the transition period this past fall. "I had to go through four people all over the territory to speak to someone in town. But now, these people they hired have more experience and the person I'm dealing with knows how to deal with trauma."

According to MacKay, the new staff members have hit the ground running.

They have already begun finding their niches in community outreach projects and areas in which they prefer to work.

"They all have so many different talents and we plan on fully utilizing all of them," she said.

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