Love for Parents

Program History

The CRD Perinatal Counselling Program has a long history of support in our community.

Let’s begin with the present-day program. The CRD Perinatal Counselling Program. In June 2020 we opened our doors and started delivering counselling to new and expecting parents across Greater Victoria.

We did this after cuts in public health funding that ended the former postpartum support program. This well-established program made counselling accessible to well more than a hundred moms a year for 30 years.

How could a new program go operational in a couple months?

When a generous, concerned donor in our community surprised us with funds to seed the design and startup of a new and improved program. And when in 2021, a new charitable organization, agreed to assist our operation and development going forward. This is the South Island Primary Care Society, an innovator in healthcare access across Greater Victoria.

Here are some results.

First, new and expecting parents within the boundaries of the Capital Regional District are better able to access counselling at the time they need it. This is because pregnant, prenatal parents are now eligible for program-funded services.

Second, our program counsellors are better able to get resources to the parents with a high need and who are clearly making progress. We can do this because of our relative independence and flexibility to adjust and adapt our operations to consider the circumstances of the families we serve.

As important as the improvements are, the new program retains a few features of a service delivery model that was introduced in 1990. That is when the legacy postpartum program was launched by Joan Wale, a private practice counsellor who since retired. Joan was able to partner with the Queen Alexandra Centre for Children’s Health which provided institutional infrastructure and access to funding through its charitable foundation.

In 1999, Joan invited Traci McGee to share the counselling responsibilities of the program. When Joan scaled back her practice in 2004 to prepare for retirement, Traci accepted the reins as lead clinician for the program.

For years, the program continued to operate with the Foundation as its institutional home. But by 2014, the Foundation had undergone major organizational changes and program oversight transferred to the regional health authority. At that point, the local charity funding that sustained the program was replaced by public health dollars. That is, for six years until a replacement program was needed and, fortuitously, funded with much thanks to the philanthropic group that stepped forward in 2020.