{"id":174417,"date":"2025-09-28T02:43:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:43:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174417\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T02:43:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T02:43:06","slug":"province-invests-6-7m-to-expand-access-to-community-based-counselling-across-b-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/174417\/","title":{"rendered":"Province invests $6.7M to expand access to community-based counselling across B.C."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Canadian Mental Health Association BC Division is welcoming a $6.7 million investment from the provincial government to extend funding for the Community Counselling Fund (CCF), which provides no and low-cost mental health supports across the province.<\/p>\n<p>The grants will go towards 44 organizations across the province, and will sustain access to mental health and substance use support for more B.C. residents by integrating counselling into familiar local spaces, such as  neighbourhood houses and friendship centres, in their own communities.<\/p>\n<p>CCF-funded counselling means more individuals, couples and families on low incomes or facing other barriers can\u00a0receive mental health support for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1176\/appi.ps.201600395\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Canadian study<\/a>\u00a0of publicly-funded psychotherapy for major depressive disorders found that\u00a0for every $1 spent on therapy, the public health care system saves about $2 on average.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis significant funding investment is tremendous news for mental health support across B.C., and building on this success with multi-year allocations would further strengthen program sustainability,\u201d noted the CMHA in a release.<\/p>\n<p>They added that sustained, multi-year core funding for community organizations is vital\u00a0to ensure stable access to mental health support and help these valuable programs reach their full potential across the province.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED: <a href=\"https:\/\/cheknews.ca\/province-extends-free-affordable-community-counselling-services-944849\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Province extends free, affordable community counselling services<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/cheknews.ca\/author\/erin-haluschak\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-perfmatters-preload=\"\" alt=\"Avatar photo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/cropped-GetAttachmentThumbnail-3-80x80.jpg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-80 photo\" height=\"80\" width=\"80\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErin Haluschak has been a journalist in British Columbia since 2008. She has worked in print, magazines and online spaces and is a mentor with Digital Women Leaders through the Online News Association&#8230;\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a class=\"author-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cheknews.ca\/author\/erin-haluschak\/\" rel=\"author nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMore by Erin Haluschak\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Canadian Mental Health Association BC Division is welcoming a $6.7 million investment from the provincial government to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394],"class_list":{"0":"post-174417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}