Clinical Counsellor

POSITION TITLE: Clinical Counsellor 

DEPARTMENT: Mental Health & Wellness Services

COMPANY: Skills for Change

LOCATION: 1345 St. Clair Avenue, Toronto, ON M6E 1C3

REPORTS TO: Manager, Mental Health & Wellness Services

CONTRACT TYPE: Permanent (Union)

HOURS: 35 hours per week (Monday – Friday, occasional evenings and/or weekend hours)

RATE: $28.84 per hour

START DATE: Immediately 

COMPANY:

Located on the traditional territories of the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples, Skills for Change (SfC) is working towards advancing the Sustainable Development Goals for the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area. Named Charity Village's Best Non-Profit Employer - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and winner of the 2021 Canada Volunteer Awards for Innovation, our organization is committed to reducing poverty, improve mental health, eliminating gender-based violence, building community, eradicating systemic racism, and settling and creating sustainable communities for all immigrants, refugees, and underserved communities. Start your career with SfC and join our 40-year history of creating innovative programming to build welcoming and equitable communities.

With 40 years of operations, Skills for Change is a highly respected non-profit charity with a province wide reputation for pioneering programs that respond to shifting immigration and workplace trends and lead to employment. We offer a range of accelerated programs including mentoring, employment, settlement, language training together with specialized programs for skilled trades, women, and youth. We have 5 locations across the GTA and serve 16,000 clients annually. We believe we are in the best position to provide thought leadership through evidence-based programming, impact stories and proactive policy advocacy using knowledge mobilization products.

Reporting to the Mental Health and Wellness Services Manager, this Mental Health Counsellor will provide high quality and responsive mental health counselling support to support women of all ages including seniors in and around the GTA, with a focus on settlement clients, including newcomers and refugees to Canada. In addition, the role will assist the program participants with disorders of thought, cognition, emotional regulation, perception, or memory that may seriously disrupt their judgment, insight, behavior, communication, interpersonal relationships, and social/professional functioning as well as individual and group counselling according to participants' assessed needs and best practices in counseling and psychotherapy.

IDEAL CANDIDATE must have:

• Experience and sensitivity in dealing with members of diverse cultural and racial backgrounds including visible and invisible dimensions of diversity.
• Knowledge or understanding of the socioeconomic, cultural, political and other issues impacting the health and wellbeing of immigrants and refugee women, and seniors including those who recently migrated to Canada.
• Demonstrated commitment to high standards of culturally sensitive service delivery within an anti-racist and anti-oppressive framework.
• Knowledge of community mental health and other resources available to immigrants and refugees including women, seniors, LGBTQI2S+, and other populations across the GTA.
• Demonstrated ability in using discretion in dealing with highly sensitive and confidential issues relating to adults from equity seeking groups.
• Good organizational skills and ability to multitask in a quick paced work environment while maintaining a high level of accuracy, confidentiality and professionalism.
• Demonstrated a high degree of initiation, risk management, time management and problem-solving ability.
• Intermediate to master level skills in Microsoft and Google Suite (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint).
• We encourage applications from candidates with lived experience similar to the clients we serve.

• Provide individual and group counselling based on evidence-based clinical assessment, interventions and treatment plans that promote assets, competencies, resilience and strengths in newcomers, refugees and underserved populations.  
• Conduct case consultation, wellness checks, client intake, risk assessment, safety planning, crisis intervention, psychoeducation and other interventions with clients either by telephone, video conferencing or face-to-face interactions in the client's preferred environment and within the standards of practice that meet the agency accreditation, regulatory body and funder requirements.
• Support wraparound service delivery by coordinating with caseworkers, instructors, program staff, and external community partners to offer holistic care plans.
• Provide counselling and intervention support for clients with or without non-disclosed trauma history through active listening, debriefing experiences, validating of feelings, and respecting client choices and decisions.
• Assess clients' needs, level of risk, and suitability for the program while maintaining clients' confidentiality.
• Design, promote and organize various online and in-person workshops, information sessions and webinars on adults related issues such as trauma, mental wellness, stress management, employment supports, building confidence and planning for the future.
• Register clients for workshops, information sessions, mentoring and other networking activities.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of counselling programs and interventions, and clients' progress in resolving identified problems or defined counseling goals.
• Make appropriate referrals to community mental health services that are outside of the scope of this program and other supports such as employment, food security, housing, settlement and social services.
• Outreach to and establish sustainable stakeholder relationships with various community agencies, business, and individual sponsors to recruit clients and establish program partnerships for workshop delivery support and referral services.
• Identify and participate in areas of professional development and training that are critical to the needs of the client population.
• Conduct clients' satisfaction surveys to inform program development and expansion as required and collaborate with other programs across the organization.
• Prepare for and actively participate in regularly scheduled individual and group supervision, team meetings and other internal and external committees as required.
• Establish, build and maintain collaborative partnerships with external organizations and entities to advance the vision, mission and strategic goals of SfC.
• Deliver short-term counselling that incorporates the psychological impacts of high-risk physical labour, manual trades training intensity, and life transitions faced by tradespeople.
• Facilitate tailored psychoeducational and wellness workshops on topics such as emotional resilience in trades, stress management, dealing with injury or recovery, workplace harassment or discrimination, and performance anxiety in high-stakes training settings.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the supervisor and management.

• Bachelor's Degree in Social Work, Counselling Psychology or related field is required.
• Minimum 5 years of experience in group and individual counselling or crisis support work with adults and families, with an emphasis on racialized/refugee/newcomer/immigrant clients required.
• Must be a registered certified counsellor with the Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers,  Canadian Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (CCPA) or some other regulatory bodies under the Regulated Health Professions Act.
• Familiarity with suicide risk assessment and management, safety planning, and crisis intervention supports.
• Experience working from ant-racism, anti-islamophobia and anti-Black racism lens is required.
• Must hold a valid First Aid Certificate to support emergency situations that may arise within the program.
• A clear, mandatory vulnerable sector check is required and must be presented within weeks of employment.
• Demonstrated ability to work independently and as a team in a diverse, dynamic, and fast-paced work environment.
• Second language is considered an asset (French, Hindi, Farsi, Arabic, Pashto, Yoruba, Swahili, Ukrainian, Chinese etc.)
• Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends.

Skills for Change offers accommodation for applicants with disabilities in each stage of the hiring process. If you are contacted regarding a job opportunity, please advise if you require accommodation. This document is available in alternate format on request. We thank all applicants for their interest in this position, however only those selected for an interview will be contacted.