Kevin: Okay, what we will cover today. So my name is Kevin VanDerZwet Stafford. I'm the Director of Clinical Training for the Relational Psychotherapy Training Program, and I'm co-director of the Maplewoods Centre for Family Therapy and Child Psychology. So what we'll cover today is some introductions beyond myself, a little bit about the history of our program, and then we will look at the three components of the Relational Psychotherapy Training Program, the Master of Arts in Mental Health, which is a non-clinical program, and our two clinical programs, the Master of Relational Family Therapy and the Master of Psychotherapy. We'll also talk to you about the admission timeline and process, and we will leave ample opportunity to be able to answer your questions as we go, and then be able to talk about some next steps. Okay, I've introduced myself. Robin, could you introduce yourself, please?
Robin: Hi everyone, I'm Robin Milhausen. I am a faculty member in the Family Relations and Applied Nutrition program. I'm an RP and I've been at Guelph for my undergrad and master’s and was very happy to come back to work in the department 20 years ago and I’m looking forward to working with many of you.
Kevin: Emma?
Emma Turner: Morning, everyone. My name is Emma Turner, and I am the Manager of Clinical Supervision for the Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program here at Guelph, and looking forward to answering any of your questions today.
Kevin: Rana?
Rana Khan: Good morning, everyone. My name is Rana Khan. I am one of the clinical supervisors and instructors in the program, and I am looking forward to hearing some of the questions that all of you have.
Kevin: Thank you. And Breanna.
Breanna: Hi, I'm Breanna. I am the Graduate Program Assistant for all course-based master’s students, and I look forward to talking with you guys.
Kevin Stafford: Thank you. The Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program continues a really long and rich history here at the University of Guelph. It's a continuation of what used to be the Couple and Family Therapy program, which was founded back in 1979. So we have a long history, a solid reputation for excellence in clinical therapy training, as well as providing community-based therapy services, which we have done for all those years and we do even on a larger scale today. This training program, the Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program, offers 3 distinct master's degrees in the field of systemic and relational psychotherapy and mental health. There's the Master of Relational Family Therapy, which is one of our clinical degrees, as well as a Master of Psychotherapy, which is another one of our clinical degrees. And then we have a really interesting, I think, a terrific non-clinical track, Master of Arts in Mental Health. And we're going to go through each of those 3 degrees for you in detail, so you can make the best decisions about which ones you would like to apply for.
Robin: So I'll be sharing about the Master of Arts in Mental Health program first. So this is our one-year non-clinical program. It's extremely flexible. It's based on taking nine courses that you can take at your own pace. You can go through it in a year or take longer if that works for you. All of the courses are offered online through synchronous remote learning. So the courses are typically Monday to Thursday nights, they start at around six or seven for three hours and you gather online in an online setting with a faculty member and other students to learn together in a synchronous environment. It is a non-clinical degree, but it includes mental health knowledge, skills that you can apply to your existing career path. So we've had guidance counsellors, police officers, teachers, all kinds of folks who want to be able to integrate some mental health skills and knowledge into their existing work, but it is not a CRPO-accredited program. It does not come with any clinical internship. Full time, but you can take as little as one course a semester, as I already said. Let’s see what the other bullets are. Yes, there are nine courses on mental health topics, and you can take 5. You'll take 5 required courses and pick four from a list of restricted electives. And you'll end with a capstone project. So this is not a thesis program, but it is a capstone project program. So you'll be able to develop a project in your area of interest and expertise, possibly related to your professional work, integrating all the things that you have learned in the program to date in a really, we think, applied and relevant final project. We have two start dates, which is very handy for folks. You can start in the fall of 2027 or the winter of 2027, and we have two separate admissions start times for both of those start dates. And that is the MA.MH program.
Emma: Okay, I'm going to now talk a little bit more about the clinical programs that we have, but before I get into that, I'm going to share a little bit about the Maplewoods Centre. The Maplewoods Centre for Family Therapy and Child Psychology is a state-of-the-art training facility here at the University of Guelph's campus. It's the second largest community facing centre on campus, and in the centre, it houses both the relational and psychotherapy training program, as well as our colleagues in the clinical child and adolescent psychology program. And so, here in this space, we see clients who are members of the Guelph community and further out, and they access therapy services here. You can see in some of the pictures here, we have our waiting area, some of our classrooms, our lounge, as well as some of our therapy rooms. The one here in the picture has the observation room, which is something that we use quite regularly for something that we call reflecting teams. It's a really great learning experience for students, but also it's a really helpful therapeutic experience for our clients as well. And so this, we're very lucky and fortunate to have such a beautiful building to be able to do our work in. All right, I'm going to start first with the Master of Relational and Family Therapy program. This is a two-year immersive and I would say intensive clinical training program where students will work with individuals, couples, and families. The families that we work with can also be with parents and young children. So there would be opportunities to work with kids as well. Oops, sorry, something's opening on my computer. There we go. We have a systemic and relational focus that integrates theory into clinical practice. So this is one of the, I feel like the cornerstone of our clinical programs is that while you're learning how to do therapy, you are providing therapy. So what you learn in your classes, you can immediately start to integrate into your work with clients. This program is fully accredited by the CACFT, so the Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy, and is a CRPO-recognized education program. This program has six practicums, which are on-site, all occur at Maplewoods. So you would have one each semester. The entire program is 6 semesters over the two years, and so you have a practicum each of those semesters. And I'll clarify to you, practicums are a place where you actually are learning the practice of therapy. So often it's focused around a particular therapeutic model. And then in addition to that, you have seven core academic courses. So while you're taking your practicums, you also have seven academic courses that are spread out over those two years, covering topics like gender and sexuality, trauma and resilience, health and well-being, just to name a few. You will accrue up to 450 direct clinical contact hours. That is a combination of both in-person sessions as well as virtual sessions. We offer virtual sessions with clients who live across and within Ontario. You will accumulate up to 100+ hours of supervision and a minimum of 175 hours of relational work–of your direct client contact will be relational work. So that's couples and families. 175 of those hours will be that. And there we go. We accept 12 students per year in this program. The program has a static start date. So we always start in May. We can't move that or change that. There's an order to how we do things. And so this program always starts in May and applications conveniently open tomorrow. Upon program completion, the graduate, you would qualify with the CRPO as a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and would be ready to write the national exam. Upon graduation, you can also apply for our RMFT (Qualifying) track with the CACFT. And one thing that we have found to be really important and helpful for all students who are in our clinical programs, to support you in this intensive and immersive program, is that we recommend that you engage in your own personal therapy. We just find that having that additional support to process this experience for you and what's coming up for you, so much of what we do in this work is connected to who we are. And so to have personal therapy is really important. All right, so now I'm going to talk about the Master of Psychotherapy program, our other clinical program. So it, as well, is a two-year immersive clinical training program where the students in this program would primarily be working with individuals. However, you will have opportunities to work with some couples and families. This program is also a CRPO-recognized education program. And here, this is where it differs from the MRFT program. So with us, with the MP program, you will be with us for the first year of the program, and you will complete 2 practicum during that time. So again, those are courses that are focused on a particular model or practice in therapy. And again, you'll be seeing clients at the Maplewoods Centre while in those practicums. And then in your second year, you would do a one-year practicum through an externship. And so you would be seeing clients in maybe a community-based organization, a private practice. And again, so we have some flexibility here around it being either an 8-month or a 12-month placement. And it can be anywhere within Canada. We can't do anything outside of Canada. And most of our placements, in fact, all I should say, all of our placements to date so far have been within Ontario. However, there is some possibility that there could be across provinces, but just cannot be outside of Canada. And then kind of similarly to the MRFT, you also, in addition to the practicum courses you'll be taking, there are the seven core academic courses. The MP students and the MRFT students take those seven core academic courses together. So there'll be classes where it's just the MP students and then those core academic courses is then all together. In the MP program, you would accumulate up to 350 direct client contact hours. This is a combination of the in-person sessions at Maplewoods as well as the virtual sessions that we offer at Maplewoods and your externship placement. And you will accumulate up to 100 hours of–over 100 hours of supervision. Again, this program doesn't have the requirement of the 175 relational hours that the MRFT program does, because this program is not accredited by the CACFT, but is recognized–both programs are recognized by the CRPO. Similar to the MRFT, in the MP program we also accept 12 students per year. And same thing, we have the start date is always in May for this program and applications open tomorrow, August 7th. Upon graduation, you qualify to register with the CRPO as a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) and are national exam ready. And I should clarify too that the national exam with the CRPO is that you write the exam in order to move from a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) status into becoming a Registered Psychotherapist. So that's a required step to becoming a Registered Psychotherapist is writing that exam. And similar to the MRFT program, we again highly recommend that people in this program are accessing their own personal therapy as a support and space to process what the experience is like and what comes up for them as well. Okay, I think that was all from, oh no, this one. So then just as like an overview of the different pathways, so you can see it all on one page. Again, we have the MRFT. It's a clinical program. It's accredited by the CACFT association. So again, there's more of an emphasis on seeing couples and families, families including children in that program, and is CRPO-recognized as well. So you'd be coming, you'd be working towards becoming a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). The MP program, another clinical program, is also a track to becoming a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying) for when you graduate. Both of those clinical programs start in May of 2027 and applications for that open tomorrow. And then again, we have our MA.MH program that Robin spoke about. It's a course-based program that does not have the clinical components, nor is it recognized by the CRPO. However, we see this program as a support to professions that are kind of adjacent to mental health, such as nursing, policing, human resources, teachers, etc. Alright, and it's completely online. The MA.MH is completely online, whereas the MRFT and MP are in-person.
Kevin Stafford: Yeah. And Emma, could you just do the bottom boxes for each one?
Emma Turner: Oh, yeah, sure. For the qualifications. Yeah. So for, so across the board, for all of the programs, you are required to have a four-year bachelor's degree with a minimum of 75% average, as well as a social science research methods course with a minimum of 70%. And for the clinical programs, the MRFT and MP, you cannot currently be a regulated health professional practicing psychotherapy or in a related field. We really are looking for people who are not doing this work already. We're looking to train people who are looking to become a psychotherapist and to practice psychotherapy. Whereas for the MA.MH program, you can be a regulated health professional, again, such as a nurse, and practicing psychotherapy or in a related field. So that I think is important. And then the last little note at the bottom is that there's no option to transfer between programs while you're in the programs. For some people who have done the MAMH program, they may then choose afterwards to apply to the MRFT and MP program, but we don't allow MP students to transfer to the MRFT and vice versa, or MA.MH students to transfer while they're in the program into the MP program, for an example. Right. We’ll Move on. Okay, I think it's Kevin.
Kevin Stafford: No, Robin is doing the MA.MH.
Emma Turner: Robin, Robin, thank you. Sorry.
Robin Milhausen: Yes, so we alluded to this a little bit that you can apply in October for our first entry period and again in June. Those are the deadlines. We'll need a cover page, a letter of interest, and in our application form we have some questions that we ask you about your interest in the MAMH program and how it will fit in with your current work and your goals, etc. So you'll answer those as well as needing references and transcripts and a copy of your resume. You'll upload those and we will review them and then you will get an acceptance letter at our earliest possible convenience for your availability to start in January or September.
Kevin Stafford: Great. Okay, I'll go through the admission timeline for the MRP and MP program, because it's a little bit more involved. So as has been mentioned, the applications are open as of tomorrow, August 7th, and they close September 14th. Those are very firm deadlines. If you submit after September 14th, we will not consider your application. The application includes the RPTP cover page. A letter of interest form, which is really a set of five questions. This is not a free-flowing letter that you write. People in the past have done free-flowing letters, not answered our questions, and their applications have not been accepted. Okay. And there are five questions. There's a word limit. Has somebody got their microphone on somewhere? Could you please mute yourself? Thank you. There are five questions. They have a word limit to them, and we're really looking for, we want to hear from you. We're not looking for, it sounds odd, but we're not looking for really polished answers. We're looking for answers that represent you, and we're certainly not looking for answers that are written by or informed by AI. There's also a section for you to complete your relevant experience or volunteer experience, perhaps that you've had. Again, whatever experience you have is good for us to be able to see. You're required to have three references. Our preference is at least two of those are academic references, one might be a professional reference. Obviously, completed transcripts for all of your work to date. And we also have a, new this year, a situational survey. And this is just one other part, like the five questions, that gives us an opportunity just to know a little bit more about you.
There are some specific things about this situational survey though. You can only answer the questions in one sitting. So you really should only log on to it once, that's it. But you have a limited time to do it. Once you start it, you have to complete it. And the other is that you only you would only submit one of these, even if you applied for all three programs, you only submit one situational survey. If you are interested in both the MRFT and MP program, you must apply to both programs separately. But again, while you have to apply to both programs separately, you only do one of the situational surveys. The second week of November is when we invite successful candidates to the next phase. And so if you're a successful candidate, you will receive an invitation to an online interview. Prior to that, however, you will be asked to submit a brief video essay. It's about 7 minutes long is what we asked for. It's based on an article and some questions that we will provide for you in advance. There's a limited amount of time that you have to do this. It's usually no more than five to seven days turnaround time for that. And this is a required element. Applicants not invited for an interview will receive automatic acceptance into the MA.MH program, if you would like. Then the week of December 8th to the 11th is our live interview day. So if you have been selected as to move on to the phase two, you will have done your interview, sorry, you have done your video, we will have reviewed that. Then we will select you for a day and time between the 8th and the 11th where you will attend a virtual information session about the program. You'll be able to ask questions directly to us about the program. You'll meet virtually with staff and program for a brief interview. And you'll also have opportunity to meet with some current students to hear about their experience in the program. Please note, we only do the interviews that week and the time, day and time you are selected, there is usually very limited, if any, opportunity to switch that around. So it's only during that time that we do the interviews. And then the acceptance process. So about the third week of December, we will have the admissions committee will have met and made our selections of 12 MP program students and 12 MRFT students. And we will have reached out to you. And what we do at that time is we make recommendation to the Registrar's Office, to the university, that you be selected for admission to our program. And as has been noted, the program starts May 3rd. Okay, that concludes our sort of formal presentation to you. We're going to now open the floor for your questions. If you have questions, please put them into the Q&A function and Breanna will organize them and ask us the questions we will answer as we go along.
Breanna: Yeah, so I have someone asking, what does it mean to apply for the qualifying track for the CACFT?
Kevin: That's a great question. So qualifying track, the MRFT students, once you graduate, you will have completed all the requirements to begin the process to become a RMFT, which is a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist. CACFT is currently in the process of changing around some of how they do that. People used to have to wait a bit of time, do more clinical hours before you could become an RMFT. CACFT is now changing that process so that by the time this cohort of students graduates, they will enter right into becoming an RMFT and on track to complete that process.
Breanna: We also have a question. Someone has a, sorry, everything's coming on my computer. Someone has a four-year bachelor's in psychology, but it's not an honours degree. They completed 2 graduate degrees, a Master of Education and Master of Technology, both requiring a capstone research paper, asking if they are able to still apply.
Robin, would you like me to answer this one? You can still apply. We do have alternate admission pathways as well, but it's all about you applying and us looking at all of your experience, your transcripts, everything we need. So I wouldn't say not to apply. You still may be eligible for the program.
Kevin: I think just to just add that to that, Breanna, Emma alluded to this in her presentation. We are really looking for people who are not currently or who have not practiced the profession of psychotherapy or have or have been or are a regulated health professional. So if you're a working social worker, if you're a working psychologist, then those are typically not folks we're looking for. We're looking to train people who don't have experience in the field.
Breanna: Thank you, Kevin.
Emma Turner: Sorry to interrupt, Bre. Just wanted to remind folks that I see a few people putting questions in the chat. There's a specific Q&A function. It might be along the top or next to chat that says Q&A. Can you put your questions into the Q&A? It's easier for us to track your questions rather than putting and using the chat function. Thank you.
Breanna Blanchard: Yeah, thank you, Emma. For the Master of Arts in Mental Health, someone's asking if they've been out of school for several years and they no longer have contact with the former professors, if we are able to just accept professional references. For the Master of Mental Health, we are able to just accept professional references if you have been out of school for too long and aren't able to get an academic reference. Does an applicant have a disadvantage if their bachelor degree was obtained over 10 years ago? I don't think so. You still completed school. You still got a bachelor's. So we will still look at your application. If an applicant graduated with a master's degree from an English-speaking country like Australia, are we able to waive the English requirement? Yes. Sorry, I'm answering all these for you guys. Someone said that they understand that you're not accepting people that have already practiced as a psychotherapist or in the related field. How do you define a related field?
Kevin: So a related field for us is really who has access to the controlled act of psychotherapy. And so that would be social workers, nurses, physicians, psychologists, occupational therapists. Think I've got them all, so that's how we're defining practicing the profession.
Breanna: Someone asked if their undergraduate graduation day is after the start date of the MRFT program, are we still eligible to apply?
Kevin: You question, Bre.
Breanna: You can't be in two programs at once. So if your convocation date is after you start our program, we can accept you, but you cannot be taking courses at another institution or even your undergraduate degree at University of Guelph while being in your graduate program.
Kevin: That includes people who may be doing a doctorate. You need to have completed your doctorate before you, if you're wanting to apply for us, you can't be finishing that while you're also starting our program, even though they are distinctly different and it is not a requirement.
Breanna: Yeah, you can't be doing any research or be registered in any courses during the time that you start our programs. Understanding the work required for this program is intensive, do students have any input on their clinical schedule? For context, I have a small child and consistency and ability to set up additional support at home is a top mind.
Kevin: Yeah, so this is one of the hardest questions to answer. I think it's a really important one because it's important that people have a clear understanding if you come into this program, what the expectation is and what the demand is. Emma noted in reviewing the two clinical programs, these are immersive, but they're also intensive programs. And so our centre is open to seeing clients from 9 in the morning to 8:30 in the evening, Monday through Thursday, and 9 in the morning to 3:30 on Friday. During that time, you'll also have classes. And once you're starting clinical work in your second semester, you'll also have supervision. So that schedule gets filled up pretty quickly. I would say the vast majority, probably 70% of our clients, particularly those with young children, are looking for appointments after 3.30 in the afternoon. So evenings are a premium. So you have flexibility within when we offer, are available to see clients. But you know, it's really going to be based on the rest of your schedule and you need to be able to accumulate somewhere between 7 to 12 clinical hours a week once you've ramped up to doing clients. So I understand people may have to work, people may have childcare obligations, but you really also have to understand the pressure and immersion of the program. There's really no escaping it. People are here for long hours and long hours during the day. And we sort of say that, you know, for every hour of clinical work you're doing in the beginning, you're probably doing an hour of work to support that clinical work. For every hour you're in a class, you're probably doing an hour at least in support of that class. So reading, doing assignments, and so on. So you are easily looking at 60-hour weeks. I'm sorry to sort of put that to people in a kind of blunt or harsh way, but this is a professional training program. This is not like your typical master's degree, and we have a very solid reputation of providing excellence, and part of that is because of the immersion and the intensity with which we conduct our teaching and training.
Breanna: What do the first 1-3 years of employment look like for both the MRFT and MP programs in terms of employment, rate, focus areas, work environments? Does the program offer any support in finding employment after graduation?
Kevin: That's a great question, so... there's quite a wide range of places of where people will work once they leave the program. Historically, and I see no reason for this to change, despite it becoming a very crowded market in terms of programming and schools that provide psychotherapy, our students are in incredible demand. And that is because once you graduate from our program, because of the hours of clinical, direct clinical work you've done, 350 to 450, because of the kind of supervision we do, our students graduate ready to practice the profession. And so private practices, some people go into private practice on their own. Usually people wait a couple of years before they do that, but lots of people do that. People go into private practice consortiums, agency settings, hospitals. There's a tremendous number of places where people will find work afterwards. We do some work in the 6th semester to help support students in how to apply for positions, sometimes in what's available. There have been some years we've held sort of small job fairs. We have a number of our graduates who run private practice consortiums and come and they're always looking to hire people. And so we invite them out. But we certainly do some work in the last semester to help people make that transition from being a student to moving into the workplace and becoming a regulated health professional.
Breanna: For the MA.MH program, are there limited spots, meaning do you accept like 25 students only per term?
Robin: There's been a lot of demand for this new program, which is why we've offered a second semester start date so we can accommodate more people in the program. And our plan at present is to actually just open up more sections if we have more students interested. So at this point, since we are only in our very infancy in starting the program, and we're still in the growing phase. So we hope to have space for most qualified applicants who are interested in the program. And again, that's why we've opened up a second entry time and we will aim to open up more sections to accommodate students. So we won't just keep on growing the courses that are online and synchronous. We'll open up another section once we reach a certain cap.
Kevin: So it's also, Robin, why we've sort of said that if people don't get into the MP or MRFT program, that people are automatically accepted into the MA.MH if they would like.
Breanna: What are some ways your program might compare or differ from the MMFT at the University of Winnipeg? For example, I know they have a self-of-the-therapist course for all students.
Kevin: So, Winnipeg is another, like us, they are accredited with the Canadian Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. In fact, they were accredited at the same time we were, I’m quite close with the director of that program. So, their programs are very parallel. They do some things differently than we do. I think one of the real advantages that we have is we have this incredible on-site clinic. And we are actually, as I meet with leadership of programs across Canada, and I'll tell you that our community-facing centre is the envy of all of those programs. Most other programs rely heavily on externship and external supervision to help people get their clinical hours. We have, again, we have this incredible on-site clinic, so our MRFT students are doing all of their work on site supervised by staff at Maplewoods. In terms of self-of-the-therapist, we don't have a self-of-the-therapist course per se, but we do focus heavily on what the CRPO references as “safe and effective use of self.” You'll see this referenced in most academic courses and certainly in all practica, and certainly in a significant portion of supervision. Many of our course instructors require people to write reflective journals, and that's a way of looking at self-of-the-therapist and so on. So we embed it differently than Winnipeg does.
Breanna: If we get an offer, is there a deadline to accept by? That is probably a question I can answer. You will receive an email from OGPS. They will inform you of when you need to accept by. If for some reason you can't accept it by that date, please send me an email and I can try and help you out in the best way possible. But you will receive a deadline of when you need to accept or decline by. On the website it says, if you have been out of school for 5+ years, we will accept two professional references. Is that still the case? Not sure what program that's for. Oh, Kevin, you're muted.
Kevin: Sorry. Robin, is that accurate?
Robin: Yes, is that that are they talking about the clinical programs?
Kevin: Yeah, I think we said yes to that.
Robin: I'm not sure.
Breanna: I think for clinical, it's two professional, but we still need at least one academic. For MA, MH, we can take the two professional, but for MRFT and MP, we still need at least one academic.
Kevin: Yes.
Robin: Yeah, that's what I think.
Breanna: But at least two professional, if we're only accepting one academic.
Kevin: If I would say if people can get the academic references, certainly if you've been in school, you've been closely, you know, not far from school, being able to connect with a former professor or something should be fairly straightforward. Two academic references is preferred. If you've been out for a longer time and that's harder, we would still like an academic reference. But we would take two professional ones.
Breanna: Do the programs allow for deference? Alternatively, how does program admittance look at things such as gap years and does this affect our eligibility?
Kevin: Not sure what the–is the question asking, can you defer?
Breanna: If they have gap years.
Robin: Yeah, Kevin, can you speak to deferring?
Kevin: Yeah, so for the clinical programs, there have been situations, they've been extenuating situations though, that where somebody has deferred. Some examples of that are, we've taken an international student who's not able to get their visas in time to be able to be here. We've allowed a deferral. Somebody who has just had a child or somebody who has to go for major surgery or something like that. Those are examples of extenuating circumstances. But typically, if you get in and say, no, I think I just want to start next year, you likely may not be eligible for a deferral. There's fairly narrow requirements for that. Robin?
Robin: Yep, that's right. And if I can speak to the gap year component, I think actually all three of the programs are really looking at holistic–looking at applicants holistically. Like we want to know about your life experiences, the journeys you've had, the travels, the work, the volunteering. And so a gap year would definitely not be an automatic disadvantage and could be an advantage depending on how you were spending your time. So, yeah, I think you'll find that about our program that we're really interested in the whole person and all of your experiences, in addition to, you know, some academic criteria. But yeah, things like gap years would not be a red flag for us.
Breanna: Thank you. Someone's asking where they can find the letter of interest form for the MP program and also on WebAdvisor, are the supplemental documents just the cover page? For that question, it's all on our website. If you go to the MP program and go to how to apply, it will show you what supplemental documents we need. And it will also give you the form for the letter of interest. For applicants coming directly from undergraduate studies, how do you evaluate relevant volunteer and work experience? Are you looking for more at the quality of the experiences or the quantity of hours?
Kevin: I would say we're looking to see what kinds of things you've done. I think we're looking for quality. We're certainly not looking for volume. But, you know, how have you volunteered your time that might be relevant to or support you in learning how to do this work? Again, the volunteer work is one portion of the application. If somebody doesn't have a lot of volunteer work or only did some volunteer work last year, say it was just kid’s helpline and that's all you have, that is certainly not going to disqualify your application.
Breanna: Will academic reference forms be sent out to those references automatically? And how do I go about my professional references? Is there a standard form I can provide them? Once you apply and you put their emails and their name into OUAC, they will automatically receive that form and be able to send it to us. Would 3 academic referees be stronger than two academic and one professional? If I have completed a year of a master’s, would the average grade include a year at master’s and a year at my undergrad? Also, what specific qualities do you want to hear about from references?
Kevin: I think whether you have two academic references and a professional reference or three academic references, really, it's what are the references saying about you? That's what we look at. We read references. I will tell everybody, we read references and they hold some weight in terms of our decision-making. And so we look for what references to Robin's point earlier, we are looking at a whole person. To be a psychotherapist, this is not a mask you put on, then you take off. This is really about accessing our whole selves. What I often talk about is the interface between the personal and the professional. Who we are as people influences how we are as a professional. What we do as a professional, how that influences how we are as a person. That interface is really what we're looking for. So when references, again, references speak to, yes, your academic work, but can they speak to you as a person, right? How do you show up in the world? How do you show up in the class? How do you attend to challenging situations. That's what we're interested in.
Breanna: And also to go on to the part of completing the one year of a master's and also your undergrad, we would take the last two years of your undergraduate degree. Do academic references refer exclusively to university professors?
Robin: I'd say generally yes. In some cases, there's been teaching assistants who have written letters or instructors who are not university professors. If you can have a university professor write your reference, that is helpful for us because university professors tend to write a lot of these and are able to provide the kinds of information about you as a student and as a person that we would be interested in, but sometimes you work very closely with a TA who's read your work and given you feedback and had meetings with you. So if they are, say, a PhD student, that would be possible. Again, we would, though, prefer to have a professor write your reference.
Breanna: If you apply for both programs and you are lucky enough to be invited for an interview for both, would you have two interviews or just one? And can you give a sense of how many people are invited to the interviews?
Kevin: So you would only receive one interview. You'd only have to do one video. You'd only have to do one of the situational surveys. And we interview somewhere in the neighbourhood of 50. We invite 50 people. We invite domestic as well as international applicants for interviews. We have a commitment to take international students.
Emma: And just to add to that as well, that if you apply to both programs, the MRFT and MP program, again, as Kevin said, you would only do the one interview, and it's the admissions committee who would make the decision about which program you're being admitted into.
Breanna: Are applicants evaluated holistically, or is there a particular emphasis on GPA, relevant experience, or the letter of interest?
Kevin: Again, we have a number of parts here. We have reference letters, we have your GPA, we have what's your experience, but we also have our five questions, we have our situational survey. And we take into account all of those things because again, we aren't just looking for somebody who's got the academic chops. We are looking for people who are well-rounded. You know, what you say in your letter of interest to us that makes us go, oh, this is really interesting. I want to know more about this person. I want to meet this person.
Breanna: I have experience in Brazil, but I'm not licensed in Canada and looking to get a license. Is this the right program for my case or would even experience outside Canada would disqualify me?
Kevin: I would say that depends. I mean, I would encourage you to apply. We can take a look at it. I think if you have been practicing the profession in Brazil and you're already doing many of the things that we train, I'm not sure where that might land because again, our strong preference is to take people who have not had any training, to train them according to our–we have a very sort of–there are 450 models of therapy out there and many different approaches. We work from this particular framework of systemic training, postmodern, strength-based, collaborative approaches to therapy. This is a bit of a niche that we have. This is what we–this is what we train. And so if people are already doing that or doing something similar to that, that may not be what we are looking for.
Breanna: For the research methods course requirement, for someone that might have a doctoral level humanities research course and taught a social science research methods course, but hasn't taken undergrad courses in social science methods on their transcript, any chance that would be considered?
Robin: Yes, we would just ask you–you have the space to explain and put information about your application and how you've met the requirements and the learning outcomes for that course. So we'll be looking at everybody's application on a case-by-case basis. And so if you have an experience like that, please document it and we'll consider it.
Breanna: If pursuing the MP track, are there any extra steps for seeing couples and or families other than the CRPO national exam in future career?
Emma: I can answer that one. So, for that, you know, one, if you're in the MP program and you're interested in working with couples and families, a couple things. One, you'll probably have some experience in your first year at Maplewoods working with couples and families. Secondly, in your externship placement, we could focus on finding you a placement where you are primarily working with couples and families to give you more of that support and experience. And then of course, you know, following it, you know, after graduation, you could always pursue additional training and webinars. There's really great trainings out there to kind of support your work and doing couple and family work. If you are in the MP program and you are, also maybe after the program, like curious or interested in actually joining the CACFT, so the Canadian Association for Couple and Family Therapy, we could support you in talking to you about what you might have to take an additional course and we could support you in finding a pathway to achieve that and joining that association.
Breanna: Someone said, I'm really interested in the systemic relational thinking aspect of the MRFT program. Could you speak more to how this informs the way therapy is practiced by the students who graduate from this program?
Kevin: As I noted just a moment ago, our program focus is strength-based, using sort of collaborative therapies and working collaboratively with clients. But all of that, even for the MP program, is under the umbrella of thinking systemically and relationally. You know, we don't live in isolation in the world. We live in a variety of systems that we influence but are more likely to influence us and who we are as people. And so we're interested in understanding that and in having students learn that. And so even when working with individuals, we're always thinking about the individual in context of their friend group or their family or their relationships or their community or their faith or so on. These are really important systems in our lives that influence not only how we think, but how we view ourselves and it's really important that we understand that. So we teach that for both our programs. The MRFT students get deeper immersion into that than the MP students.
Breanna: Someone has been practicing in India as a therapist for the past two years, where there's no licensing body for therapists. It is not a regulated profession here. Since the program does not take regulated professionals, and they are not regulated in India, are they still eligible to apply for the clinical program?
Kevin Stafford: It's really hard for us to answer that question based just on that information. We'd have to look at that on a case-by-case basis. I would also wonder, because the CRPO does not have a residency requirement to be registered, which means that you can live in another province or another country, that many people live in other countries and are registered with the CRPO. And that if you are practicing in India as a psychotherapist, you may in fact be able to be registered with the CRPO already. And so that would be another avenue for you to have a look at. But it's really difficult for me to answer those questions based on that little bit of information we would need to have a look at, which we do. We assess these on a case-by-case basis if people apply. Yeah.
Breanna: Sorry, I'm just reading. If you have physics and a math background as your first degree and a master's degree, can you still apply if you had advanced child and youth care diploma?
Kevin: Yeah. We have had applicants from across disciplines. There was one year we had applicants, there were a number of chefs, there were a number of people who came from drama backgrounds. If you can meet our base requirements, then the undergraduate discipline–if you can meet our base requirements, is in some ways the sky's the limit.
Breanna: Are classes typically in the morning or evening, or both?
Kevin: So for the MP program, the MRFT program, classes are typically during the day. There is one in the second semester, there's one that goes into the early evening. However, clinical work goes into the evening and clinical work is all day, sometimes supervision goes into the evening as well, depending on when that might be scheduled. So again, this sort of speaks to the amount of time and what I was alluding to earlier. This program requires a pretty significant commitment of time and person to be able to do this. Now, there's a question earlier about somebody who said they had small children. What I meant to have said at that time is, we have had people who have small children. We currently have some students now who have young children. And they will tell you that with good supports around them, it's doable. They'll also tell you it's a lot.
Breanna: I have a few questions asking if we accept international students.
Kevin: Yes, we do, and we have a commitment to take international students.
Breanna: Would my professor who I used to be a TA for count as a professional reference? [Nods yes] And is it possible to apply right now but defer to the next year?
Emma: I would say that deferrals, again, as Kevin said, are for extenuating circumstances. And so we wouldn't recommend for you to apply this year if you're not ready to come into the program this year. And so apply, apply when you're ready. And then, yeah. But deferrals is not a process that we regularly have.
Kevin: They’re extenuating circumstances, and they come up as you approach needing to be here.
Emma: Mhm. Could I propose a question, Bre, from the list?
Breanna: Of course.
Emma Turner: So it says here, can you speak on the type of supervision we'll be getting in terms of how many hours a week, the style of supervision, and can I request additional supervision if required?
Kevin: A great question. So, the kind of supervision that we do, and you or Rana may want to jump into this too, but supervision is a bit to me, it's the jewel of this program. It's the pearl of the clam of this program, if you will. So first of all, all of our client sessions are digitally recorded. Where the work takes place in person, it also takes place virtually, and regardless of that. All of that work is digitally recorded. Those recordings are then used by the student to review their clinical work, to raise questions of things they want to talk about in supervision. They then take selected clips, if you will, of those videos to supervision to show in supervision to their supervisor. Supervisors also have access to those video recordings to be able to watch. And we are always watching video from the standpoint that we provide therapy from a strength-based perspective. We provide supervision from a strength-based perspective as well. We're looking to enhance and develop the abilities of the students. You will receive a minimum of one hour, it's usually two hours of supervision per week. As long as you are seeing clients, you must have regularly scheduled supervision. Regularly scheduled supervision is always and only in-person, and you will do supervision with a supervision partner. So you both attend supervision, and you'll be assigned a clinical supervisor for the term that will change in the next term. So if you're an MP student, you would have two different clinical supervisors while you're here. If you're an MRFT student, you would have multiple different supervisors while you're here, we think that lends to the development and growth of students. Outside of regular scheduled supervision, there is opportunity to do ad hoc. We also have a process that Rana and Carlie have developed of doing group supervision that is thematic and specific to certain issues or ideas. In addition, as long as people, as long as we're open to seeing clients, there is always a supervisor at the inside of an office or at the end of a phone. And we call that emergency on-call supervision. So if there's something that comes up, you can reach out to a supervisor. There's always a safety net in terms of doing the work. Students will accumulate between 350, 450 direct client contact hours. That's you working directly or you working with a co-therapist, seeing clients directly. These are real people, real problems, and you will accumulate in excess of 100 hours of supervision. Emma, Rana, do you have anything to add to that?
Rana: Go ahead, Emma, if you have something.
Emma: No, I think that covers it well. I think mainly and this kind of–
Kevin: Live supervision.
Emma: What's that? Oh, and reflecting teams. Yes, we also do reflecting teams, which I mentioned when we had the observation room, and so that's part of supervision as well. I think this kind of piggybacks on another question I see around kind of strong recommendation, aside from a strong recommendation for external therapy, what are some ways your faculty models and provides direct support for students' emotional processing? So, I think this kind of lends itself to this question around supervision. So I think that, you know, I think supervision is there to support you. Again, we recognize that this program is a lot of work and it's a lot of work to be a therapist. A lot can come up. And so in supervision, certainly there's something that's called “safe, effective use of self,” where we spend time speaking and talking about the ways in which you are being impacted by the work. But we make it very clear that this is not therapy. It is something different. And that's why we also recommend therapy to also be happening as a support for you as well as supervision. The way that I think of supervision is that, you know, for you being the therapist in the room with the client, you're doing the hard work. You're there and holding that space with the client. And I think the most important thing for you to feel while you're doing that is that you feel that the supervisor team here and your specific supervisor for that semester has your back. And so no matter what happens in that session, no matter how hard it is or how stuck you feel, that you feel confident that you can come and talk to your supervisor or anyone on our supervisor team here at Maplewoods and talk about what came up, what happened, and what you would want to do differently next time. We're very open to you coming and talking to us about what this is like for you, barriers that are coming up for you. In fact, we'd rather know that more than you not tell us and you feel that you have to hold onto that in some way or keep that secret or keep that close to you. The more that we can know about how this is going for you and how you're being impacted, then the more we can support you. Because that's what we see our role as. We see our role as being here to support you. And we love it. That's why we're here. That's why we do this. So I just wanted to add the other question there about kind of the support that we offer here as supervisors too.
Kevin: And I would add to that that I think one of the things that certainly I do in supervision is I help people to sort out, for whatever is going on for you, what part of that belongs in supervision and what kind of conversation can we have? And then what part of that maybe needs to go to personal therapy, maybe you need to take that to another instructor, maybe that's something you need to go and talk to, one of your parents about, or your sibling, or your friend, or somebody else in your life, to be able to explore that thing for yourself. But that's how I see being able to sort that out for people as well.
Breanna: For the MRFT program, how does the program relational approach shape the way students are trained to think about a client's difficulties at Maplewoods?
Kevin: So we take in addition to sort of a systemic approach, and I guess this is embedded in a systemic approach, we take a non-pathologizing approach to working with people. So even people that come in with diagnoses, people are not their diagnosis. And so I think it's understanding more about–what was is that Michael White, a famous narrative therapist, founder of narrative therapy, says, you know, “people are not the problem. The problem is the problem.” And so it's helping us to understand the real effects and problems have real effects in people's lives. It's helping us to understand the real effects that those problems have in people's lives but helping people to gather themselves and their agency to be able to stand against or make better sense of how that problem is affecting them. So that's one of the ways we work. And as I said earlier, in terms of systemic work, we're always thinking, it doesn't matter whether we have one person or 10 people in the room, we're always thinking about the other people in the person's system or the system before us and how the influence that is having on how the person views themselves and the challenges that they are having.
Breanna: If someone is having issues getting their visa and they got an acceptance letter to our program, would we let them defer to the following year based on not being able to get a visa?
Kevin: That is a potential example of a deferral. Or that is an example of a potential deferral.
Breanna: I'm just switching over to the other comments section to see if there's anything.
Considering the admission rates are quite competitive, how important is a GPA?
Kevin: So again, we take into account GPA, but we also take GPA into account with the other elements of the application. We're not just looking for people with a high GPA. I will tell you off the start, I'm a graduate of this program, I was a B+ student. Because you're a B+ student doesn't mean you will not get in; because you're an A+ student doesn't mean you will get in. It's all that in complement to the other, the letter, the situation survey, your references, your work experience, all of these things together help us determine who we select.
Robin: Bre, there are, oh, there's a good one from Becca in the Q&A with seven interesting, useful questions.
Breanna: Go ahead.
Robin: Okay, I'll read them. What's the average number of applicants to each program? How many applicants tend to move past phase one and phase two?
Breanna: Yeah.
Kevin: So last year we had in excess of 700 total applicants and there were, I think, over 450 discrete applicants. So that's because people apply for both programs. So this is just MRFT and MP, not MA.MH. Robin, you can have speak to how many MA.MHs there were. So that's a lot of applicants. We review, we look at every single application. And then we will select, as I said earlier, we select in the neighbourhood of 50 people, domestic and international, that we invite for the second phase.
Robin: And as we've only had a few offerings of the MA.MH program and getting the word out, I think we've maybe, we may have like maybe 100 applicants per admission phase, like 50 to 100, and we accept applicants who are qualified and, you know, with strong references and will open up more sections, as I've said before, if we have more applicants who are excellent. Next question, what's the pass rate for graduates on the exam, the national exam, guessing the CRPO exam?
Kevin: So the pass rates, I can't speak to CRPO as a whole. I can speak to graduates of our program. I don't believe, and with the national exam, you actually get 3 attempts at it, and I would–I don't believe that anybody who has graduated our program has ever failed it the first attempt.
Robin: Do you think it's realistic to work part-time while in the program?
Kevin: So again, and this is a really hard question to answer, and I feel harsh in my answers sometimes with it, and I recognize the privilege I hold in answering this question. This program requires a deep commitment of time. This is two years of your life that is immersive and intensive. As Emma had stated earlier, you will get out of this program what you put into it. And the more that your life, whether that's work or other parts of your life, take up time for the program, will take away from the number of clients you see, the investment you make in and how you think about clinical work and doing additional supervision and those kinds of things. I get that people need to work. I get that this program costs a lot of money for people to go to. People need to make that decision. But we've also seen students who have become overwhelmed and burnt out because they are balancing family, work, and doing the intensity of this program, while also having to deal with the new experience of sitting with people who are affected by pretty significant events. The clients we see are drawn from our community. The majority of clients we see are drawn from the greater Guelph community, sometimes virtually throughout Ontario. These are not just university students. And we have families and people come with... who are multi-stressed, have complex problems they are facing, and are incredibly challenging. So that in itself, to begin to sit with folks like that, to engage with people in that, that is hard work, again, as Emma noted earlier. This is hard work, and it's certainly hard work to learn how to do it. So I'm not sure how much of an answer that is. People do have to work. People have worked. I've also watched where people say, no, I can do this. I can do this work and I can do this. And they get through the fall and they go, I can't work. I can only do this. And people have to make some really difficult decisions.
Robin: Thanks. I'm interested in providing psychotherapy to children. Do you have a program that you would recommend between MP and MRFT?
Kevin: If you are interested in working with children, then the MRFT track is probably your better option. We currently have a lot of families who are coming with children and increasingly younger children, which is interesting. And so you would get a fair amount of exposure to that with us. The MP, you would get some and it would really depend on where you went and did your placement, but that is certainly not a guarantee that you would get the exposure to children that you would like. I think it's also important for us to note that because somebody has an interest in working with seniors or with children, or the LGBTQ+ community or, because you have that interest doesn't mean that you will exclusively get only those clients. In both programs and certainly the MRFT, because people are here for the full five semesters of seeing clients, you will be given a range of clients and the expectation is that you will engage in that, even if you're not interested in working with children. There will be an expectation, certainly if they're in their MRFT program, that you will probably see a family with children, because that is a good experience to be able to have.
Emma: And I think too, a big thing that we think about as well is that some people come into the program thinking, you know, “I don't think I really want to work with adolescents” or “I don't know if I really want to work with couples.” And then they have opportunity to work with those demographics or populations and then kind of discover like, actually, “I kind of like working with kids. I didn't know that about me. I didn't know that I would have this interest.” So I think that's one thing that we really value in how we set up this program is it is kind of meant to give you opportunity to work with a range of demographic systems, concerns, social locations, etc. for you to maybe be pleasantly surprised around what you are interested in. And some people, you know, graduate from the program continuing to be kind of a generalist and seeing different people, different populations, or sometimes because they've had this wide range of experience and they can have the opportunity to really get to know what, who and what they prefer to work with, they then may choose after graduating to then specialize in something. As Kevin said as well for the MP students, I work closely with all the MP students in finding their externship placements. And one thing that I talk to the students about is, you know, what are you interested in? What is your priority around what you want to get out of that externship experience? And for some people, it is about maybe the demographics or people that they're wanting to work with, and so I work with them as best as possible to find them an externship placement that can meet those hopes that they have.
Kevin: I think I'll also use this as an opportunity to just highlight again that with 450 models of therapy, there are lots of programs out there that do different things. We're really clear that we teach a set of models that come under a strength-based, sort of post-modern, collaborative approach to therapy. Dialogic, solution-focused, narrative therapies are our primary ones, and then thinking about how we integrate those under the umbrella of really solid systemic practice. Graduates of our program come out with really solid foundational and ethical training in seeing clients, which becomes a really good foundation to then go and specialize, to then go and learn other models of therapy, or specialize in things like EMDR or hypnosis or sex therapy or trauma work and so on. We provide the foundation. We're really clear that is what we do. If you come to our program and you're interested in CBT, you will not get CBT here. You will not get DBT here. You will not get psychodynamic therapy here, Jungian therapy. Those are not what we teach. There's nothing wrong with those therapies. There's nothing wrong with those models. They're great, long histories. It is not what we do.
Robin: Thanks. I think you talked about this a bit, Emma, but maybe we could just really articulate it. Can you talk more about the online classes for each program? It sounds like the MP program with online classes and a practicum anywhere in Ontario, we do not have to live near campus for the last year of the program. Is this correct? And can you also speak to like just both programs and the offerings for online courses?
Emma: Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, so for the first year of the program, the MRFT and MP students are both here in Guelph at the Maplewoods Centre. All your classes are in-person. Your supervision is in-person, and you'd be seeing clients in-person at the Maplewoods Centre as well as there is some virtual therapy that you'd be providing as well. So thinking of that first year of your program being in Guelph, in-person. For the MP students in your second year, you are doing your externship placement, and that can be, again, anywhere in Canada. Again, primarily, we've done Ontario specifically. And so because of that, we offer all of your courses then move online to create that flexibility for you to be able to do a placement, not in Guelph or near Guelph. So all of your courses, your practicums, and those academic courses all move online. What that means is for the MRFT students who are continuing to see clients here at Maplewoods Centre in their second year, their practicum courses continue to be in person. Their supervision continues to be in person, but those core academic courses that they share with the MP students, those move online. So for the MRFT students, you'll have in that second year, one course, which is your practicum course in-person, and your other course, which is your academic course, will be online. So you'll always have one in-person, one online, whereas for the MP students, all your courses move online in that second year, again, to give you that flexibility. That being said, so far, we've had actually some flexibility. Like, so part of my role is also the externship coordinator. I meet with the MP students who are doing their placements, checking in with them. We have good chats with each other. We learn from each other around what's happening in your placements. Sometimes we have conversations about, you know, maybe next month we're going to meet in-person. And so some people do that and I'm open to hybrid, but the hybrid option is always a decision made by the instructor. So that's something that I'm okay with, but anyone teaching a different one of your courses may not want to do hybrid and may keep it online. So just to, I hope that clarifies those pieces.
Kevin: Let me just add to that, as we’ve said, we've not yet had anybody outside of Ontario and when we say in Canada, the other issue to consider, Canada is a big country, a lot of time zones in this country. So when you're doing a placement, if you're out in Victoria, that's a three-hour time difference and you'll need to account for that. If you have an early class, you're doing that earlier. So that's something to think about. The other is, and this didn't come up directly, but I thought about it as you were talking, we have had students who have said, oh, “I live in Scarborough,” or “I live in London, I'm going to commute.” And some might take public transit, some have taken public transit, and think, oh, “I can do this.” And it works in the summer because you're not seeing clients in that first semester. The schedule is a little easier. Once they start seeing clients, a number of students we have said, “oh my goodness, I can't do the commute. I am now scrambling to find a place to live,” or find places to stay overnight for several nights while in Guelph, rises dramatically. So I think that's something to take into account as well. And given the commitment and immersion, if you are then sitting on transit for two or three hours a day or more, that's a huge amount of time taken out of your day. So I think that's something that people would need to give some consideration to as well.
Robin: I'll hand it back to you, Bre.
Breanna: Sorry, I was just answering some in the chat.
Emma: I can propose a question, Bre, if that's helpful.
Bre: Yeah, go ahead.
Emma: There was a question here about what is the process for client assignment? So here at the Maplewoods Centre, we have our client service coordinator, Amanda, who's amazing and wonderful. And Amanda does most of the intakes with Rana. And when we have the intakes, Amanda and I meet twice a week and review the intakes. So clients often, we ask about, you know, what is it that's bringing them to therapy and what are their best hopes for therapy. We also ask them too, if there's any preferences or considerations that they would like us to keep in mind when it comes to assigning them [to a therapist]. So sometimes clients ask, you know, if they could be paired with someone of a particular gender, race, sexual orientation, or experience with certain lived experiences. And so we try our best to take those things into consideration. Of course, we cannot always guarantee it. And we then look at–we do a lot of things based on your clinical hours. So we run weekly reports based on your weekly hours because we are very committed to making sure you are getting the clinical experience that you're hoping for. So then we look at that and see who might be low and who might be needing to be assigned more clients and we make the assignments based on that information primarily. Sometimes it might be, especially for the MRFT students who again need the 175 relational hours, we might be also specifically looking at who is low in their couple and family work to make sure that those hours are kept up as well. But we do our best and we're very open to hearing from students as well, around, again, your areas of interest. We're not going to say that your whole caseload is going to be your area of interest. Again, we really want you to have a wide variety of experiences, but we definitely are open to hearing what experience you would like, and we do take that into consideration. The other side of that, too, is that we also don't want to have you seeing too many clients per week, because that can really burn you out. And so we're often keeping that in mind as well around, you know, folks who might be crossing the threshold of the number of clients we would like you to be seeing per week, which is around 12 clients or 12 sessions per week. So we don't want you to cross that and so we're also keeping that in mind when it comes to assigning new clients. I hope that helps.
Breanna: For the MA.MH program–
Kevin: Sorry, can I just add to what Emma was saying? Sorry, I was muted. We respect the diversity of our clients and we have a wide range of diversity of gender, of culture, of race, of orientation, class and so on. So we are highly respectful of the diversity of our clients and you would need to be prepared that you might work with anybody, that you're not able to say, “oh, sorry, I don't work with this kind of person, or I don't…” something's been said before, “I don't work with men.” Sorry, you will likely have to work with men. You know, we also have families, couples that come in sometimes, and there's been intimate partner violence. That's part of what we train people to do. We have some really unique partnerships. One is with Immigrant Services of Guelph and Wellington County, and so there's opportunity for people to work with new immigrants, often with the use of an interpreter, which is a tremendous learning experience, and on a number of levels. We're also the preferred provider of services to Children and Family Services. And so these would be people who are going through the child protection services, and we will work with families whose children may have been apprehended. We work with families whose children may be at risk because of certain things that are happening. And so that's a provider for us. So those are examples of the kinds of things that we get presented, and students don't actually have a lot of latitude to say, sorry, I'm not working with them. Bre, you had another question for us?
Breanna: It looks like Robin actually answered it in the chat. Go ahead, Robin.
Robin: Someone asked, can you receive dual endorsement on both programs or in both programs with extra courses or hours?
Kevin: Can you receive dual endorsement?
Robin: Yeah, like get the relational component if you're taking the MP program by taking extra courses.
Kevin: Not while you're in-program. This is something we've begun to think about is what is a pathway for MP students to get that additional recognition or designation, but that would occur after you've graduated. It's not something you could take concurrently.
Emma: A couple people just asked and maybe it's just helpful to put it in this space. A few people have asked what's the difference between what is due by September 14th for the application to the MRFT and MP program and how is that different from what is due on September 28th? I don't know, Robin, if you wanted to speak to that one.
Robin: Actually, I'll hand that to Bre.
Kevin Stafford: This is for the MRFT program.
Emma Turner: To the MRFT and MP program, what is due by September 14th and what is due by September 28th?
Kevin: Why don't we put that slide back up? That's slide 12.
Breanna: Yeah, so it's basically the 14th you have to apply by, but by September 28th, you have to have all your documents in. That includes transcripts, references, statement of interest, any document that you see on our website that is needed, it all has to be in by the 28th and no later.
Emma: So basically, you have to apply to OUAC by September 14th, kind of putting your name in the hat saying, I would like to apply to this program. And then you have two weeks to get your documents in. Is that fair to say, Bre?
Breanna: Yeah, that's correct. We do like–it would be highly recommended if you can at least get your unofficial transcript in as soon as possible. That will help with the evaluation process and help us not have any delays as we will have lots of students applying. Beyond that, your other documents, as long as they're in by the 28th then that's fine.
Robin: Looks like we've done a pretty good job answering questions in the chat as well as in the Q&A section. If folks have a burning question we haven't addressed yet, perhaps you could repost it in the Q&A or chat so it shows up at the top, but going through them looks like we've either addressed them in the chat or we've talked about them together here.
Breanna: I was just going to say we do have one question. Someone wants us to speak more on the MA.MH admission model that we use.
Robin: Yeah. Well, we love reading your answers to those questions. We create new questions every year. I worked on them, ones that are just new for this year. We're really interested in knowing your perspectives on mental health concerns and how they can be addressed and how you might be using the skills you learn in this program and the knowledge to enhance your current work. So the model is just we look at every student individually and we really take their answers to those questions seriously. We really don't want to see answers from ChatGPT and we can smell them a mile away. Please don't. We really care about you as a human being. And this is true across all programs. Like I can't underscore it enough. There's never been a... I don't know, there are a few programs and professions where your own personhood and humanity will be more important and show us that from the beginning in your application. So we'll be looking for that across the board. But do write your thoughts in those questions. And as I said, we don't have a rolling admissions process yet. So you won't be–we may do them in batches at some point, but otherwise just apply following the process that's outlined on the website. We do take your answers to those questions seriously and read the reference letters, and then we'll welcome you aboard. I'm not sure whether information is needed, but yes, write them yourself with your own ideas.
Emma Turner: I have a question that I've seen a couple of times. It's just around references. And so one specific question was around, would we consider a TA who knows the candidate very well as an academic reference, or does it have to be a professor?
Robin: We would prefer a professor just because they tend to write a lot of these and they understand what we're looking for in a graduate program. They have like a top-down view of what success in graduate study is, or what supports success in graduate study, and often in clinical programs also. So those letters tend to be the most helpful. But if you feel like someone who doesn't, who is not a professor but was your TA, knows you well and they can speak to your accomplishments, especially if they have, if they can say they've supervised many students or etc., they can demonstrate their own sort of expertise in writing the letter, that can be helpful. But yeah, we prefer professors if they're available.
Emma: And in addition to that, we get asked, and I've seen it asked here as well, is that, you know, we do say we want two academic references, one professional reference. However, for folks that maybe have been out of school for a bit, having academic references may be harder. So we're open to having two professional references and one academic. The most important thing, though, is that you have three. You have three references from people who know you well, who can speak about you. There were times in previous admission processes where we didn't even look at candidates who didn't have three references. So make sure you have three. Make sure you give your references time to submit their references for you. Sometimes that has also happened where the person providing the reference didn't have enough time to do it. And then another question I'm seeing in the chat as well is just about, and maybe we've touched on this, but maybe we need to reiterate it just a little bit, but just generally like what are we looking for? What makes a strong candidate when we're looking at applications?
Kevin: Yeah, and I see there's somebody also asked, you know, what would they suggest for somebody who had previously interviewed and are reapplying again? Again, it sounds sort of woo-woo maybe or flaky when we say this, but we really are looking for, I think Robin just really spoke to it nicely. We are really looking for the whole you. And so we want to get to know who you are as a person, how you think. What are the things that make you tick, if you will? It's not just, can you–that's why in our five questions, When I read and what to me is clearly a rehearsed or researched academic answer to something, that tells me you're good at giving me an academic answer. It doesn't tell me–some of the questions ask, what do you personally think about? That doesn’t tell me what you personally think about. That's some of what we want to know. So, and I know this seems really counterintuitive, but this is not what you're supposed to do for graduate programs, for typical graduate programs. This is not your typical graduate program. This is a, we've said it before, say it again, this is a deeply committed program. You need to be committed to it. It's immersive, it's intensive, and this is a professional program. You are learning to do, you are learning to practice a profession while you are doing this, while you're also doing your academic work. That is different than most of your typical graduate programs, so show us who you are. That's really what we want to see. And when we say we're not really looking for things polished, we mean it. We're really not looking for things that are polished. And to Robin's point of about AI, we do sniff AI out. And that doesn't go well for us. We don't like the use of AI when we find it. So I don't know that I really have a specific answer on how to improve a candidacy if you had interviewed again. If you do interview and you don't get in, many people have asked for feedback afterwards and we're quite happy to provide that. I see somebody else has also asked a question about, are there advisors that meet with students on a one-to-one basis regarding individual cases? So we sort of spoke to this earlier in terms of supervision. We don't, again, a typical master's degree, especially if you're doing a thesis or you're doing research, you would have an academic advisor. We don't have academic advisors in our program because our focus, if you will, is the clinical work. So you have a clinical supervisor assigned to you. You'll also have access to the other clinical supervisors. People have lots of access to me and to Emma, additionally. But you'll have a supervisor assigned to you who will be responsible for your actually working under their license and who will be responsible for helping you to navigate how to work with all of your clients.
Emma: Bre, I see here a few questions about how people should declare their average on the title page, the cover page that they need to submit. Are we looking for a grade letter? Are we looking for a percentage? How best should people declare what their average is?
Breanna: It is best if we have a percentage, just as if you're an international student and you have, say, an A, it's hard to know the equivalency to Canada. But if you aren't able to figure that out, we will just take a letter grade and I'll figure out the equivalency to what that is. Also, there is a free program called Scholaro. You can go in there and input the last two years of your grades, either letter, percentage, 4.0, and also the credits, and it will give you what your equivalency grade is to Canada. It does all the work for you. You can even use the AI upload and just upload your transcript. Just make sure when you're using it, you're only doing your last two years of study, not the full entire transcript. But we will take whatever you do. We also do our own evaluations once you apply and once I look at your transcript anyways. So I'll make sure that what I have is either matching yours, or maybe if you're giving me an A+, I might get something different. But Scholaro is a very helpful tool if you want to use it and you have up to five free trials with it. So that might be very helpful to a lot of you folks.
Emma: Do you, Bre, can you put that in the, I don't know where people, I'm going to assume the chat maybe people will be able to see that.
Breanna: Yeah, I can also add that in here. I'll add the link.
Kevin: Okay. There's another question here and I'm sorry, stuff came up in my screen and Nathaniel, I put a surprised emoji to your question. I'm not really surprised. I'm not sure how that happened. Keep me away from tech. Anyway, the question is about with respect to us using or asking people not to use AI, does that mean that you would prefer that we don't ask other people for their input when editing the answers we give to the application questions? That feels different to me than using AI. And I think if I was applying to a program and I wrote my questions out and so on, I think I would be getting a trusted friend or colleague or maybe a parent or something to say, could you read these and see what you think? What am I missing? But I would be asking them, “do I come through in this answer?” Right? “Does this reflect how you know me?” I think that would be a good way of using those real people in our lives to be able to assess the responses that we are being given. I don't think I would write something and then say, oh, I'm going to put this through AI just to crisp it up, because AI will probably take the “you” out of it. I'm always surprised by the little things I do when I write. I put it in AI and it's taking all those words out. I go, but that's the way I speak, that's me. And so I put them back in again.
Breanna: If I have applied for permanent residence but have not yet received the PR status, would I be considered an international or domestic applicant? Typically, you would still be an international applicant until the registrar's office receives your PR certification. So once you become a permanent resident, then you can submit all the documents to the registrar's office and they will change your status and help you with your tuition costs. Sorry, I was just typing in the chat regarding Scholaro, so I'll take a quick look.
Kevin: There seem to be a number of questions again about GPA and how that's ranked and do we do highest and lowest and so on. It's almost like I'm seeing this concern around GPA. I just want to reiterate, GPA, your GPA average is one metric. We will review every applicant and regardless of GPA or grade point average, we review them all. And we do that by looking at the other elements as well.
Breanna: Yeah, and I'm also putting in the chat regarding Scholaro and kind of how to do it. But again, we're going to do all the evaluations anyways. So if you maybe didn't get it correct or you took too many courses for that GPA, we'll determine it in the end. We're not just taking that number.
Kevin: I would say, if you're sitting here thinking, "Gosh, I'm a B+ student, or I'm an 80 student, there's no point applying," I would say that is the wrong attitude and approach to take.
Rana: I'd probably add something that I think about a lot in supervision and even when teaching students is what is your ability to form authentic and meaningful relationships? Much of the therapy work that we do is based around the therapeutic relationship. So much of what I think I look for is, well, how do you relate to people? And what is your ability to relate to people? So whether you have a gap year, whether you have, I don't know, you're doing any other things in your application, can you highlight or show how this thing that you have done has influenced your ability to relate to people and to relate to others in an authentic and meaningful way.
Breanna: I've got a couple questions regarding for the last two years of study, do we take their undergraduate degree or their graduate degree? We would typically take the last two years of your undergraduate degree, but we will also look at your graduate degree if maybe your undergrad isn't meeting the minimum. We will also take your graduate as typically the last two years of study is where you have your highest grades. So we will look at both, but typically it would be your undergraduate degree that we would take for your admissions. We also have had quite a few questions regarding research methods, what courses they need, how they would accomplish that to put on their application. So maybe if we can just talk a little bit more about that especially because I do receive a lot of emails regarding that aspect.
Robin: Bre, did it go up on the website, the learning outcomes from the research methods courses that we're looking for? I'll just jump in and say that, yes, we get a lot of questions about research methods. And so basically any course that has research in the title or research methods, this is helpful for us. Not statistics. Statistics is not the same as research methods, as it's like more math and numerical than like the philosophy behind research and ethics, which is what we're looking for. But we are also posting on the website, if it isn't there already, you can go through the courses you've taken, and we'll be listing the learning outcomes that we're looking for that are in a typical research methods course, and then you can map on and see if your courses have had similar types of topics covered and would have given you similar skills and knowledge. So I would say just give us all the information. Say, I took this course, it's this, I took this course, it has this. You make the case, we'll also be evaluating your applications independently, as Brian and Kevin have already said. Everything goes through a careful, rigorous, very time-consuming, multiple-person review. So if we can find in there that you have taken research methods or you have enough information about research methods, we will pass you on to the next stage. And we don't just throw things off the pile if it doesn't immediately seem to be the exact thing that we were looking for.
Breanna: Can you comment on reported job prospects, security and salary after graduating from this program or related programs?
Kevin: As I said earlier, our students, because of the quality of our training, are in high demand when they leave the program. I know I can speak, it depends where you work in terms of salary ranges. But I would say that there is no question. Maybe, Rana, you could speak more to this. There's no question if you, you know, graduate this program and you work and you're good and you work in private practice, that you can make you can make a good living. Rana, would you have anything to add to that?
Rana Khan: Yeah, I think in private practice, depending on where you're at, like if you're in Toronto versus if you're in Guelph or if you're in Mississauga, where you work matters quite a bit. Generally, I've said to students and also like the graduating classes, your first year will be challenging. But that is, you know, if you're building anything, your first year will be challenging. You're up against a lot of competition. However, relative to other students who have graduated and are in the same place, our students are well and beyond that just because of their hours. But I would say, yes, your first year of employment is going to be challenging. But then your second year, and then I think probably, I can confidently say by your third year, you are making a sustainable living.
Robin Milhausen: And I would say this program in particular, these two versus other programs that have a less immersive experience, that have fewer hours of supervision, that have less, you know, immersive supervision, reflecting teams, many, many recordings made, the students who graduate from this program or both these programs, are extremely well positioned. If there is a job to be gotten, they would have an advantage over folks in less immersive programs with less sort of like wraparound training and supervision. So you'll be extremely well positioned to work in the world and a desirable candidate. The program, as Kevin said at the start, has a long history back to its roots as the CFT program. So people know us in the community, in Ontario and in Canada. So if you come from this program, they also know how hard it is to get into, how many applications we go through and how many people are accepted. So I think if you're concerned about employment, you're at least putting yourself in a good position by coming through this program.
Kevin: Just about done, are we?
Breanna: Yeah, I think that's pretty well it.
Emma: So I'm just going to show the last slide because it just might have some helpful websites for people to check out. So again, if you're looking for additional information about the relational and psychotherapy training program, we have our website here. Each program also has their own designated website. So the MRFT, MP, and MA.MH, if you're looking for specific information about kind of what we had laid out and the difference between the programs. Of course, on these websites as well is the information about the application process. Bre, you can reach her around any questions you may have about admissions at [csahs.admissions@uoguelph.ca]. So if you do have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to this email address and we'd be happy to answer your questions. This webinar, once we get it edited and put together, will be put on this website as well, the RPTP website. So you can look back at it, review it. Maybe you didn't catch the beginning of it and you want to look at it. So that information will be there as well.
Kevin: There is a question from a bit ago I just saw, could you please, could you explain what a typical day would look like for both MP and MRFT programs? I think that's a good one. Maybe I'll start and you guys can jump in. So once you start seeing clients, a typical day might include, let's say you have, you might have a class, you might have a practicum from 11:30 to 2:30, and then you might, before then you might have seen some clients. You might see some clients afterwards and into the evening. Another typical day might be that you've got supervision. You might start your day with supervision, and then you're going to go and see some clients, and then you've got a co-therapy session. You're going to meet with your co-therapy partner to strategize around that. You also have to prepare for supervision. So you're going to be reviewing tape. Maybe you've done that several days beforehand. You have a form you have to fill out around that. But you've also got a pile of session notes that you need to write. And so you're writing these and then you're submitting them, waiting for a supervisor to review them. Maybe out of that session notes, run it by your supervisor, I have a question about something and I suggest we meet to talk about it. So now we're finding a time to meet. And then you're going into a couple of sessions, you're doing those back-to-back, you've got to write the notes for those, and then you're taking some time to write the notes before you leave for the day, which maybe you're leaving at 9 o'clock or maybe 9:30 or sometimes later, depending on where it is. So again, there are a lot of components to this. There's the academic work you have to do. The time put into classes, as well as the assignments you need to do. Then there's the clinical work. And the clinical work takes up a lot of space because it's not just the hour or the hour and a half that you're meeting with a client. It's the preparation time in advance. It's preparing for supervision. It's the going to supervision. It's a consulting with your co-supervisor around preparing for a session. It's the writing of the notes and we write in a very specific way and we support you in that. And there's, particularly in the beginning, there's quite a back and forth. If I'm your supervisor, you're writing something, I'm making some track changes, adding some comments, asking some questions, you come back, give me another draft, I send it back to you, we do some back and forth like that. Those things all take time to put into a day. Emma, Rana, would you add anything to that?
Rana: I agree. Generally, that is what your day would be like. In addition, I always like to recommend to students, do some sort of ritual that you do before you either like enter into kind of like Maplewoods, have some sort of exit ritual, just something that you feel like just can ground you or just kind of maybe remind you of what is important for you. So whatever that ritual is, I am highly in favour of doing some sort of ritual that you do consistently.
Emma: Yeah, I agree. I don't think I would add anything to that, just that ultimately, like, there's a lot of moving pieces. And again, there's some things in your schedule that are static and consistent, like classes, supervision, and then your clients and schedule, your sessions get kind of scheduled around that, file meetings, things like that. And I think too that like time, you need time for yourself as well. You need time to decompress. You need time to, as kind of Rana, I like what you're describing around a kind of entering and leaving kind of process. I think as well, it's important to know too, that in between every semester, we have a two-week semester break. So that I think is really important to know as well. When you're in the program and the program is up and running, we expect you to be here. You know, you can't take vacation in the middle of a semester. However, you do have the two-week semester breaks in between each semester. And that's a great time to take time off. We really want you to disconnect from the program. Your clients would know that you're away, all of that. It's standard procedure for us. So that's a really great opportunity. So we're actually coming up to our two-week break at the end of August, which we're really looking forward to and then we'll have at the end of December and then at the end of April. So those are when the breaks are but those are really important to take them when they happen. With that said, if there's nothing else, and of course, you know, we did our best to answer as many questions as possible. If you have any lingering or remaining questions that were not answered today, or maybe there's something really specific to kind of your situation, your academic background, et cetera, please reach out to Bre at the email address that we have listed here, and she would be happy to answer any of those questions for you. And really, really appreciate all of you taking the time today on this Thursday morning to come and to hear about our program. We care very much about this program and the people in it, and we look forward to seeing your applications. So, thank you, everyone, and hope you have a good rest of your day.