The First Nations and Innuit Non-Insured Health Benefits (NIHB) program was created by Indigenous Services Canada (ISC). Long story short, the NIHB program offers First Nations and Inuit peoples living in Canada coverage for many medically necessary health benefits.
Some of these benefits include prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications, dental and vision care, medical supplies and equipment, and mental health counselling. While this sounds great, there’s a catch.
When it comes to mental health counselling, the NIHB program only covers fees for counsellors that are regulated by a professional college. Being ‘regulated is basically a gold star of approval from the Alberta government.
The thing is, counselling therapists in Alberta are not regulated. In other words, the NIHB program will not provide coverage to First Nations and Inuit peoples for sessions with these counsellors.
For example, Shaheen Alarakhia owns Holistic Healing Counselling in Edmonton. She is also a designated Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC). This certification indicates that Alarakhia has met and continues to maintain a certain level of professional training and ongoing education.
These certifications don’t grow on trees, and you can’t just buy them online. In order to become a CCC, you need a Master’s or Ph.D. in counselling or a related field. You must also receive your degree from an institution that the government recognizes.
In addition to a boatload of required coursework, CCC applicants have to complete up to 800 hours of directly supervised counselling.
Even though Alarakhia has put in the work to receive her CCC certification, her services aren’t covered under the NIHB program because she does not belong to a regulated professional college.
This is because Alberta does not have a regulated professional college for counselling therapy. Since Alarakhia’s services aren’t covered by the NIHB program, she has had to turn away people, including an indigenous woman hoping to confront her trauma.
“She shared with me that I was the sixth person to call her, that she wanted to work on some of the trauma she was going through…I’m able to do the things she wanted to work on, but I couldn’t be the one to help her,” Alarakhia said in an interview.
But this could change in the near future.
The UCP was previously working to create a regulatory college for counselling therapists in Alberta. The proposed college is called the College of Counselling Therapy of Alberta (CCTA).
This regulatory college would hold counsellors to professional standards, codes of ethics, and strict requirements to practice in Alberta. The CCTA would also investigate complaints and dish out discipline to its members.
More importantly, counsellors registered with the CCTA would be covered by the NIHB. This means First Nations and Inuit peoples would have covered access to sessions with CCTA-registered counsellors.
But the creation of the CCTA was put on hold after Alberta’s previous minister of health Tyler Shandro stated it was no longer a priority for his government.
This has had terrible consequences. Without coverage, seeing a counselling therapist can cost as much as $200 an hour. So what other options do indigenous Albertans have?
While there isn’t a regulatory college for counselling therapists, there is for registered psychologists, registered clinical social workers, and registered psychiatric nurses. This means their services are covered by the NIHB program.
Because of this, there is a surge of Indigenous Albertans seeking these services. Leigh Sheldon, the CEO of Indigenous Psychological Services and a Swan River First Nation member, said she has almost 90 people waiting every month to see one of her registered providers.
At one point, Sheldon offered more than 2,000 free counselling sessions within eight months to those that couldn’t access the NIHB program.
“When you’re turning a residential school survivor away because we don’t have a provider, that’s not OK and it’s really disheartening,” said Sheldon.
The Alberta government claims that progress will be made in 2023, but what does this really mean? Without a regulatory college for counselling therapists, some Albertans are having to wait as long as six months for help. This is not okay.
