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  2025 Yearly Recap

  12-Dec-2025

  Dear friends,

  This has been quite the year for The Peoples’ Counselling Clinic.  It has been our first full year in our beautiful new clinic space on Quinpool Road.  We expanded quickly in recent years and are not showing any signs of slowing down.  This year we welcomed new staff members and started new partnerships to help us move into the next phase of our development. 

  Always focused of representation from diverse communities, we have achieved a nice balance of people from varied backgrounds on staff.  This, of course, helps us serve the people who access the clinic.  It also lets us get different perspectives and worldviews when making policy and programming decisions.  We spent 2024 using staff meetings to vision our future and identify priorities.  We spent 2025 taking action to make that vision a reality. 

  Some highlights for the year include expanded funding from the Nova Scotia Department of Justice to match our ongoing contribution to the Halifax Domestic Violence Court Programme, and a large investment from the provincial Office of Mental Health and Addictions to support our work in community based mental health service delivery.  In partnership with that office, we have been able to inform the development of policy and programming in the sector.  We have started to increase our focus on therapy and case management for youth, couples and families.  We have also started to formalize our work in sexual behaviour assessment and intervention.  We have continued to offer immigration hearing assessments, Parenting Capacity Assessments, and sexual misconduct assessments.  Our forensic assessment services help us inform the courts and other institutions about the needs of the individuals, families, and communities we work with.  We have also continued to partner with other organizations to develop specific services for African Nova Scotian students and other Black community members.  We engage in public education and consultation to let us shift policies and programmes in the larger system.  To that aim, this year our Executive Director presented at an international men and families conference in Barbados.  The conference was a part of a larger movement to bring together experts from around the world who work to address the issues men and boys face.      

  The clinic is demonstrating its value as a low-barrier, effective model of service delivery that reaches people who are not adequately served by mainstream programmes.  People who want to access our services can self-refer, and we also accept referrals from other agencies.  We require no formal referral or diagnosis, just a simple call or email from the person who wants help or one of their service providers.  Our clinic offers flexibility for people who may need to work on a range of issues.  We have been able to successfully operate with no wait list, and first appointments are usually offered within a few weeks of someone reaching out. 

  We are always looking to expand our network and find new ways to fill in gaps in services.  If you are a worker or administrator at another organization and want to work together, please get in touch.  We are looking forward to another year of solving problems.  We strive to create services that are safe, accessible, inclusive, responsive, innovative, and relevant.  In these ways, we hope to move toward our vision of societies and communities where all peoples enjoy equitable access to mental health and social services.  

  With gratitude,

  -James and Kim

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