Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program | University of Guelph Webinar Transcript | Fall 2023 Tricia: Welcome everyone. We're very excited to be having this session and to be launching our Relational and Psychotherapy Training Programs. Just a note, we have the slides here and some housekeeping notes to please keep your microphone muted and your video off. We are recording the presentation so that you can see it later and there is a Q&A feature for you to ask questions. If you look across the top bar of Microsoft Teams, and click on Q&A, you can submit your questions there. Any questions that we don't get to during the session, we will be posting the slides along with answers to the questions that were asked. And if you want closed captions, you can click on the dot-dot-dot across the top under more and select language and speech and turn on live captions. So with that, I think we will go on to the next slide and get started. So as I said, welcome. My name is Tricia van Rhijn and I am the chair of the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition and a faculty member in the department. And it's my great pleasure to welcome all of you to this session. So what we will be doing today is we will be doing some introductions. We're going to be talking about changes to the previous Couple and Family Therapy program, which may be the original program that you heard about. And then of course, we'll be giving you the details about our new Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program, which includes three different master's degrees. So you have options in terms of your training. We have a Master of Relational and Family Therapy which we will refer to as MRFT, a Master of Psychotherapy an MP, and the Master of Arts in Mental Health, MA.MH. Today we're going to go through the details about these new programs. We're going to talk about the admissions timeline and the process. We will open up for a question and answer session and we will talk about next steps as well. So with that, I am going to turn it over to my colleague, Scott Maitland. Scott: OK, good afternoon everybody. We're just going to do some introductions, introduce you to the team members who are on board here today to answer your questions and provide this information. Starting out, we have Kevin VanDerZwet Stafford. Kevin is the Director of Training for RPTP and Co-Director of the Maplewoods Centre. We also have Emma Turner. Emma is the Manager of Clinical Supervision for RPTP. Dr. Tuuli Kukkonen, faculty member in both Family Relations Applied Nutrition and the RPTP faculty. As you met Dr. Tricia van Rhijn, the Department Chair for FRAN. Dr. Scott Maitland, that would be me. Thank you very much. I am both a faculty member in the department as well as the graduate coordinator for our programs. And we have Shauna Porter who is the assistant manager, grad operations in the Dean's office also has a long history of being the graduate admin assistant within our department of FRAN. Kevin: Good afternoon, everybody. Kevin VanDerZwet Stafford. I'm going to talk about some changes to the CFT program. The Couple and Family Therapy program has a 40 year history at the university and a solid reputation for clinical training and excellence and providing community based therapy services. We’re often considered the gold standard for clinical training in Canada. We have revised the program to better respond to a number of changes, including significant changes in the regulatory and accreditation landscapes in both Ontario and in Canada. The ongoing mental health crisis which predates COVID, and the need for more systemically trained psychotherapists. And the third, increasing demand for more flexible pathways for learning and program delivery. Considering these changes, we have developed, as has been noted, the Relational and Psychotherapy Training Program or RPTP. This program will offer three distinct master's degrees in the field of systemic relational psychotherapy and mental health. The first two, the Master of Relational Family Therapy and the Master of Psychotherapy, are designated as clinical degrees where students will integrate theory into real time clinical practice. The MRFT degree most closely resembles what was provided in the old CFT program. The third degree, the Master of Arts and Mental Health, is designated as a course-based master’s and as such there is no clinical practice component. This is considered a non-clinical degree. And very excitedly the MRFT and the MP programs will operate out of the newly renovated Maplewoods Centre for Family Therapy and Child Psychology. This is a new and state-of-the-art training facility. We have some lovely pictures here for you of it which is the second largest community facing Centre at the University of Guelph. The Maplewoods Centre provides clinical services to the greater Guelph community for individuals, couples, and families. The Maplewoods Centre is also a collaboration between our program, the RPTP and the Clinical Child adolescent psychology program. Emma: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Emma and I'm going to talk a little bit about the Master of Relational and Family Therapy program and the Master of Psychotherapy program in a little bit more detail. So first off, I'll start with the MRFT program. This program is a two-year immersive clinical training program and what we mean by that you’ll be doing clinical work, you'll be supervised while you're in the program and seeing clients and learning different theories and practices. Next, it's also a systemic, relationally-focused program that integrates theory into clinical practice. This program is accredited by the CAMFT, which is the Canadian Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and is recognized by the CRPO, which is the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. This program also offers 6 practicums which are on site at our Maplewoods Centre which Kevin just mentioned. So, you'll have one practicum for each semester and these practicums are our theories and models that are based in postmodern ideas and theories. There's also 7 core academic courses in such as it could be including trauma courses as well as ethics. In this program, you would be earning up to 450 direct client hours. These would be a combination of both in person clinical work at the Maplewoods Centre as well as we do offer virtual sessions as well. So it would be a combination of both of those and that you would be earning up to or possibly more than 100 hours of supervision. And part of this program, because it's related to or connected to the CMFT program, about 40% of the work would be considered relational, meaning that there would be more than one person in the room. So that might be couples, relational work, or family work. This program accepts 12 students per year and this program starts in May of next year, so May of 2024. And applications for this program, we're planning to open that for Monday, so November 27th. Graduates of this program can register with the CRPO as a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), be CRPO exam ready, and on track to become a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist with CAMFT. So again, this is the RMFT program. Now I'm going to move into the Master of Psychotherapy program which has some distinguishing features. So again this is a 2-year immersive clinical training program. So similar to the MRFT, you will be seeing clients and attending supervision while learning theories and models of therapy. This program is recognized by the CRPO as well. There are two practicums on site at Maplewoods which will occur in semesters 2 and 3. And then one of the big differences for the Master of Psychotherapy program is that this program in your second year you will do a one-year externship placement from semesters 4 to 6 while doing a practicum placement. But that will be online because you will be off site for your externship placement. This program also has the same 7 core academic courses as mentioned with the MRFT and you'll be earning up to 350 direct clinical hours in combination of the in person, in person work at Maplewoods, also virtual and the externship placement. So the combination of those will add up to the 350 and you will earn up to 100 or plus hours of supervision as well. This program also accepts 12 students per year. This program will also be starting in May of 2024 and applications for this program also open on Monday, November 27th, 2023. Graduates from this program will be able to register as Registered Psychotherapists (Qualifying) at the time of graduation. So now I'm going to turn it to Tuuli, who will speak a little bit more about the Master of Arts in Mental Health program. Tuuli: Thank you, Emma. I think my camera might be freezing a bit. Welcome everybody. I'm Tuuli Kukkonen. I'm going to be teaching in this program. So, the Master of Arts in Mental Health is going to be our fully online, non-clinical remote program. This will be a two-year program, but it can be potentially completed in as few as 16 months and will be again delivered completely remotely. So this will have no on campus requirement and no clinical hours at all. The idea for this program is that it is going to be an excellent opportunity for professionals to gain a foundational understanding and knowledge in mental health and social policy. So it'll be a great addition to their existing career paths. For our Master of Arts in Mental Health we are also going to be opening the applications process at the end of November on November 27th, 2023, but the idea here is that we will have students starting in September as opposed to the earlier start date with our other two programs. In terms of coursework for our MA.MH, we're going to have the same core courses as the clinical programs. However, we will then have additional courses that focus more on grounded foundational knowledge of popular therapeutic modalities so you're getting the theory of it without any of the clinical work. In addition, we'll be covering social policy, and we'll have a wonderful two-semester capstone project course in transitions in mental health. So in summary, if we take a look at the three different streams that we're offering, we've got two clinical streams, the MRFT and the MP. Both of those will have components on campus, though the MRFT is the only one that will be fully on campus and housed within our Maplewoods Centre. The MP will have the opportunity to have two practicums on site and then you will have one year in a externship off campus. You can see there that there's a difference in terms of the hours. So our MRFT will have 450 direct clinical hours versus the MP which will have 350 direct clinical hours. They're both starting in the spring semester and then the application process is very similar for them. For our MA.MH again, fully online remote synchronous learning, there will not be any practica, there are no direct client hours. This one will be starting in September and will offer the opportunity again for professionals to gain a solid understanding of mental health issues and have a degree in this particular area. So with that, I will pass it on to Shauna who will highlight the application process for these streams. Shauna: Hi everyone, welcome. I am Shauna Porter. I'm the Assistant Manager of Graduate Operations in the CSAHS Dean's office as well as the Graduate Program Assistant in the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition. And I'm going to talk about the admission timeline for firstly the MRFT and MP programs. So as you heard and it's very exciting is we are opening the application portal on Monday. Fingers crossed that it opens on Monday, November 27th, this coming Monday and those applications will close on January 16th, 2024. And in that application package, you will need to submit first your OUAC application. That will happen on November 27th, and then you will submit your letter of interest, which will be comprised of some specific questions that will be given to you. Your relevant experience. Three references. Those include two academic references and one professional, as well as your transcripts from your previous institutions. If you're interested in both the MRFT and MP program, you must apply to both programs separately and indicate that in your application when you are applying. Once that has been completed, all of the files will be reviewed and then we will send out invitations for interview. Interviews will take place between February 12th and 19th of 2024, so next year. Don't worry, you didn't miss anything even though it says 2023 on the slide. If you are a successful candidate, you'll receive the invitation to attend a live interview, and prior to the interview you'll also be asked to submit a brief video essay. More information will come with that, of course. Sorry. You'll find the interview invitation between those dates, and then the live interview days will be February 20th to 23rd, and this day will include an info session about the program and the Maplewoods Centre. You will meet virtually with faculty of the program for a brief interview, and you'll meet with current students and recent grads to go over some information that you may find helpful about the program. And then the acceptance process starts in March and you'll be notified by the RPTP admissions team if you are going to be recommended for admission. The start of the program will be May 6th. So again, this is the summer or spring start program. A little bit different for the MA.MH program. However, the opening of the portal will also hopefully be on Monday, November 27th, 2023 and the closing date will be March 11th, 2024 so a little bit longer for this program. This application will include a letter of interest and your CV, two references as well as your transcripts. And if you're interested in the other programs, you have to apply to them and then you can apply to the MA.MH program as well. So in theory you could apply to all three programs if you are interested. Just going back, we do not and will not accept any transfers. So if you get into one program, you cannot transfer into the other program. The acceptance process is; you'll be let it let know in April whether you are successful and will be entering the MA.MH program and then the start date for this program is September. So a fall start for these programs. And then I'm going to turn it over to questions. Kevin: Got two questions in the chat, I'll answer those to start. The first question is wondering if the MRFT and MP are two, two years straight through or if there's a break for the summer. So both those programs as noted are immersive clinical training programs and they are 24 consecutive months. And so once you start building up clients, you start a client load in your second semester and you will carry that for the MRFT. You'll carry that all the way through to the end. Both those programs will offer breaks. Our Centre closes for two weeks between every semester. There's no clinical work and no coursework. And just with that, you can expect in both of those programs to spend somewhere between 50 and 60 hours a week in terms of class time, preparing for classes assignments, but also doing clinical work, preparing for clinical work, supervision, file meetings, documentation and so on. I hope that answers that question. The second question is, can you please describe what the externship for the MP entails? So there is an externship component. Students who come into the MP program will do two practicums on site at Maplewoods. You do some clinical hours here and then we will prepare you for an externship for 9 to 12 months at an external agency. These externships could be in a family-based agency or could be a family health team, it could be a family service agency. There are some smaller agencies as well. We will create contracts with these. It is our responsibility to find those externship sites for you. If you're in that program and you have an idea of where you would like one. Let's say you live in Alberta and you would like to be able to do your externship in Alberta, then we're open to hearing possible places in your home province where those externship sites might take place and we can try and negotiate those. You would collect the bulk of your clinical hours and do your supervision in that externship site. Sarah: Thanks Kevin. Shauna is going to go over the next question. Just a reminder, I see some people are putting their hands up. Please use the Q&A function. We are looking at all of them and we will ask those questions. Shauna: OK. If I complete the MA.MH program, can I register with the CRPO as a registered psychotherapist? Kevin: A great question. So we've said this throughout and to be clear again that the MRFT and the MP programs are the only clinical track program we offer, and they provide a direct route to the CRPO for registration. The MA.MH is not a clinical program. One of the things that the CRPO requires is that people have an integration of theory into clinical practice in order to become registered. And so there is no clinical practice in the and the MA.MH which makes it not a route to the CRPO. Sarah: Thank you. The next question, is there a thesis component for the MRFT program or any possibility to continue on to a PhD? Kevin: So I'll start then maybe Tuuli or Tricia could take the last part. So there is no thesis or research component to the MRFT or MP programs. Tuuli or Tricia, could you talk about the PhD possibility? Tricia: Sure, I'm happy to do that. It is actually–this is really set up as a terminal master’s, so it would be unlikely to go on to a PhD program. Most PhD programs do require that you complete a research-based thesis in order to get into them. There are alternative pathways to get into PhD programs if you already have existing research experience or you gain research experience, perhaps you go off and you work for a bit and you get some. And so it depends on the PhD program you're looking at. But there's not a straight path from this one. There is one opportunity at the University of Guelph, there is a PhD program in social practice and transformational change that does not require a research-based thesis and so that is one option that may be available that might be of interest. Sarah: Thanks so much, Tricia. Will the MRFT and MP programs always start in May? There were several questions that asked if they'll ever start in September. Tricia: My camera's already on so I'm happy to answer that and anybody else can jump in. But yes, they are going to be starting in May. And part of the reason for that is that we need to give you the foundational training to be able to see clients and the bulk of clients are coming to see people in the fall and winter semester. So it actually prepares you well and so the May start is a change for the program and what's going to remain. Shauna: I have the next question, if I'm a student in the program, am I seeing real clients by myself? Are the clients all university students? Kevin: That's a great question. So yes, some of our clients are drawn from the university community. So they would be university students. But the bulk of our clients probably is 75 to 80% of our clients are from the community. So these are real people, individuals, couples, families who would live in the Guelph or greater Guelph community who would be coming to meet with our students. And yes, you will be seeing clients on your own or sometimes in co-therapy. Co-therapy is when you would be working with another in program student who would be conducting the therapy with you. Because we're a training Centre, all of our clinical sessions whether there are in person or online are video recorded. And this is a part of what makes our program really very exciting is that students can then bring their clips of their sessions, supervisors can watch the sessions and provide really positive feedback and support to students as they're seeing clients. But yes, to sort of reiterate, you're seeing real people with real problems, if you will, from the community and you start off seeing clients on your own. There's a lot of support that's given to get you ready to be able to do that. And we always have supervisors who are on call. So while you're in the session alone, you're actually never alone. Sarah: Thanks Kevin. What type of funding is available to students? People are asking if there is funding available for any of the programs. Kevin: Who wants to take that? There is funding. We have a link we can put in. There is funding available and there is a link I think that we can add somewhere or that's available. Tricia, do you want to speak more to that? Tricia: Yeah, I was just going to say so the programs will be eligible for student loans. So you can apply for Ontario Student Assistance program. There is no guaranteed funding for these programs. So there's not a guaranteed minimum funding like there is in research-based programs, but you will be eligible for other scholarships and grants and that sort of thing. And you can also apply as GTA as we often need those to help teach our undergrad courses. Although those positions would not be guaranteed, you would be able to apply for them and be competitive for them. Those are sort of the main pieces. You're going to be very busy and so it can be difficult to take on too much extra though, so we'll be careful about that part. Sarah: Thanks, Tricia. There are some other questions asking about what is considered relevant experience? So can somebody offer some insight as to what is expected for relevant experience when applying to the master's programs? Kevin: So again, I think that's a great question. So relevant experience, It's actually pretty broad. So we would be looking for people who maybe have volunteered for Kids Help Phone or perhaps you've volunteered in a seniors home or you have perhaps worked with children in a summer camp. That's all relevant to experience. What we're not looking for you to have practiced the profession or have had paid work around this. We're really looking for what is the kind of volunteer experience that you may have had working with people, interacting with people from a variety of different backgrounds, cultures, orientations, diversity, and so on, ages. Shauna: I have the next question. How is the clinical work evaluated? Kevin: Again, a great question. So as I mentioned before, all sessions are video recorded and everybody will have at least one supervisor assigned to them. We have a number of clinical supervisors that are available to consult with people and so students will have weekly supervision with their primary supervisor and at that time they will bring clips of their video recordings and they'll be watched and some feedback will be provided. It's also opportunity to talk about other parts of their clinical work. So supervision is one of the primary ways we evaluate clinical work in the practicums as well it's evaluated by how you're understanding the theories and ideas presented and I can talk about how you are integrating them into clinical practice. The other really exciting thing we do is we do something called live clinical teams. So you would come in, you'd have a client, you would come in in person or virtual. We do live clinical teams in both ways. In person we use a one-way mirror. So you would work with the clients in the room and there would be a team of colleagues and supervisors. So might be 3 colleagues and the supervisor behind the one way mirror who would be observing what you're doing and then what's really cool at some point would switch places so you and the client would come behind the mirror and the team would go in front and they would provide, we're always strength based we're we don't work in terms of diagnosis or pathologizing people. We're always working from a strength-based perspective to provide clients with support and feedback that is hopefully helpful towards helping them change. So these are all kinds of ways that we evaluate the kind of work. Sarah: Thanks Kevin. Does the curriculum and do the courses address ethical racial, gender and cultural issues? Kevin: So I'll maybe start with that and maybe somebody else would like to add to it. So we've been very careful in the courses that we select. So yes, we have, we have courses that are designated in ethics and professionalism. We have courses in gender and sexuality and we have courses that address cultural attunements and humility. So the while these are designated courses, we also have a very strong pedagogical belief that you can't just learn those things in one course, they have to be interwoven in all courses. So if you were in this program, you will find that discussions about gender, about sexuality, about culture, about race, about power are interwoven into every course, including all practicums. Sarah: Great, thank you. There are several questions that would like to know if they don't come from a psychology or family relations background, but may have an undergrad degree in something else, for example International Development or something, how would they make their application competitive to be strongly considered in the program? Kevin: So we would encourage applications from a variety of disciplines. I can think a number of years ago we had applicants who number of applicants who came from arts and drama sector. So I wouldn't let that deter you provided you are meeting the base requirements the research course in the social applied research course and the average. I think it's it really comes down to how you answer the questions in the letter of intent. Sarah: Great, thank you. Can you provide a sort of an estimation of how much time is spent online versus in person learning? Several people have questions about the mix of online versus in person and what that might look like. Kevin: So the for the MRFT and the MP program - so first of all the MA.MH is exclusively remote synchronous. So all your coursework, all your classes, everything is all done remote synchronous. And for those of you that may not be clear, “remote synchronous” means there's a designated class time and everybody is showing up at that time with the instructor. For the MRFT and MP program, we've done a bit of a split that the first year, the seven academic courses, in the first year those courses are all in person, delivered in person. In the second year, they're delivered remote synchronously. For the MRFT and MP programs, the practicums are all in person. The clinical work is split between in person and remote synchronous and there are lots of different ways that gets divided up. But we believe for the clinical degrees, it's really important to have opportunities to meet face to face in person, to build a community with colleagues to you know that the dynamic of teaching and learning online is different than teaching and learning and practice. The things we can do, particularly role-playing or those kinds of things to go much easier in person. So it lends itself for the kind of clinical training that we are providing for people. There's also differences between in-person therapy and remote therapy and we believe it's important that people have a good grounding in both. Sarah: Thanks, Kevin. The next question is what type of faculty mentorship is available to students? So perhaps Tricia or Tuuli or Scott might be able to comment on this. Tuuli: I can pop on for a minute. So in terms of faculty mentorship, you won't have the same that you typically have with like a master's degree with a master's supervisor. You'll have clinical supervisors who are available to you and certainly the faculty in the courses. We are all going to be available to you to assist you with your learning to support you in any way that we can. But there's no formal supervisor like master's supervisor that would be assigned to students. I don't know if anyone else wants to jump in and add to that. Kevin: Thanks, Tuuli. I'll just add to that, and I spoke a little bit about this earlier that for the clinical components and because you're seeing as I said real clients from the community or real people from the university, university students, supervision and having close contact building good relationships between supervisors and our therapist-interns we call them is really critical to what we do. We invest a lot of time in orienting people in building those relationships and working closely to help you become the therapist that is within you. But this is part of our philosophy. So that's the type of mentorship. It's different to the academic mentorship many of you maybe think about, but there's a clinical mentorship that is built with the clinical supervisors. Shauna: Thank you. I have the next question. If I am in the MP program, do I have to find my own externship placement or does the program support me in that process? Kevin: So the program will support the finding of externships. Emma Turner actually, who's here today, is going to be the lead in finding and securing externships for all 12 students who are in the MP program. Again, as I noted earlier that if you're in the program and you have an idea of where you would like your externship to be, again, let's say, you come from another province or another community; for instance, you're from Halifax and like to do your externship in Halifax and have an idea of where then we can explore whether that is an option. So we will work with you around that, but there's not an expectation that you have to go out and find your own externship. Sarah: Thanks Kevin. Some questions around the references. Can people provide two professional and one academic? If you don't have two academic references, can a second professional reference be used? Other questions about if you've been out of school for some time and don't know if you can get two academic references. Any advice on getting references for the program? Kevin: Scott, would you be open to speaking about that? Scott: I think what our advice has been in the past, Kevin, is that if we do have people who have been out in the field for a while or are working professionally, we have been willing to accept two professional references. We still ask that they try to provide an academic reference. Even if it's been time, most people can still find a professor from their prior program to at least write a reference for them, even if dated and that's acknowledged and absolutely understood in the review process. Sarah: Thanks, Scott. Another question is, was feedback from previous Couple and Family Therapy students considered when making modifications into these new programs? Kevin: Great question. Yes, it absolutely was. As we were beginning the process a couple years ago to revise and revision the CFT program, given some of the changes that I had spoken about, we actually did a survey of our alumni and we had responses from pretty much every year, at least one person from just about every year that we ever graduated. And as I said, the CFT program's been around for 40 years. So we did quite extensive a survey of our past graduates. Shauna: The next question what would be my qualifications graduating from the program? Kevin: So if you are graduating from the MRFT or the MP program, so your degree would be a Master's of Relational Family Therapy or a Master's of Psychotherapy. Both of those programs are recognized education, training and clinical experience programs with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario. That means that in your last semester, both those programs we will walk you through and support you and your application to the College to become a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying). Once you are a Registered Psychotherapist (Qualifying), you are legally allowed to practice the profession. For both programs, you will graduate with all the course requirements and likely sufficient hours that you could write the national exam. And once you've written the national exam and you have 450 hours of direct client contact and 100 hours of supervision, you're eligible to move from the RP (Qualifying) class of registration to the full RP class of registration. So again, graduating in the MRFT and MP program, you graduate here job ready and legally through our regulatory body, legally allowed to practice the profession. Additionally, in the RMFT program, you will graduate to be on track to become a Registered Marriage and Family Therapist with a Canadian Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. Sarah: Thanks Kevin. Does the MRFT include clients that are under 18? Would we have the theoretical or training for therapy with children? Kevin: So yes, the MRFT, we do see clients under the age of 18 because we are a systemically focused program, our interest is working with people within their family or relational systems. So it would be very unlikely that you would work with an individual who is under the age of 12 on their own and you would be meeting them in the context of their family, if you will, their family system and you will have the training. You'll also have the supervisory support to be able to provide those services to any clients that come in. Sarah: Thank you. Emma: Can I just add something real quick? Sorry. So yeah. And I would say too that in all of the practicums as well that we do try and also kind of integrate how this particular model is then applied to or worked with particular system. So that might be in intimate partnerships and couples but also in families and including it with children and youth as well. So certainly at Maplewoods Centre, we do service and support people who are under 18 and we do provide that support also too because the Maplewoods Centre is in collaboration with the clinical child and adolescent program in the psychology department, we also have the ability to do interdisciplinary work together, which is really exciting. So certainly we have consulted with them as well when it comes to working with young people under 18. Sarah: Thanks, Emma. There were a couple of questions that we're asking about the qualifications and being able to get certified in other provinces other than Ontario. Can anyone comment on that please? Kevin: Sure, I’ll comment on that. So, some provinces have regulation for the practice of psychotherapy in the broad perspective, there's some provinces that are unregulated. The CRPO, if you're registered, as an RP (Qualifying) or as an RP with the CRPO, then you can likely move to other provinces and practice depending on that province. One of the advantages of the CRPO is there is not a residency requirement. So anybody, actually any anybody in Canada, in fact anybody in the world can apply and become a member of the CRPO. Provided their home jurisdiction so home province or state or country allows for that to occur. Shauna: I have the next question. I'm going to combine a few questions here to ask. What part of the application weighs the most? So is it previous grades, maybe experience, reference letters, etcetera. And then a Part 2 to that question, how competitive do you believe this program will be in comparison to the CFT program? Tricia: I can start and then maybe turn it over to Kevin. So the what weighs the most depends, there's various stages in this application process. So in the first stage, when we're going to be short listing for those that will be invited for interviews and to and to submit the videos, we will be looking at your full package, your transcripts, your admission average, your reference letters, and your statement of intent. All of those components are important, primarily your statement of intent and your relevant experience. The grades, you have to meet the minimum overall average. And for the social science research methods course. I'll note here, I did note a question saying if you haven't got a social science research methods course, yes, you could start taking one and have one in progress like you can do that ahead of applying. But it's a really tight turn around. So you'd have to go really fast. For future years, maybe that's good information. Subsequently when you get to the short listing, of course then the weight is going to be on your video submission and your interview. Kevin, did you want to add to that? Kevin: No, I think I think your answer was great on that. What I would say is in terms of its competitiveness, I think much like the CFT program, this is highly competitive, these are highly competitive degrees and we expect there will be a lot of applications for them. Sarah: Thank you. We are getting still several questions about how many students are in each of the three programs and a little bit about maybe some rationale as to why there are certain numbers of students in each of the programs. Kevin: So the MRFT and MP program will accept 12 students each per year. Tricia, do you want to talk about the MA.MH? Tricia: Sure. Yep. The MA.MH, we anticipate in the first cohort that we will accept 24 students and you know the question about why, why 12 and 24 for these, it's really about capacity. We have to have, especially for the clinical programs. We have to have the right number of clinical supervisors to see all of the clients and everything. There's a possibility in the future that we may increase, but at this point that is the capacity that we're at. And then I think probably the MA.MH program is the program that's most likely to be able to have increased capacity because you can see the picture of the building behind me, the Maplewoods Centre. It's really hard to fit even more people and clients in there. So it's a little bit harder to grow, but we will have to wait and see. Shauna: Thank you. I have another question, Kevin and Emma, this one is probably for you. Is it manageable time-wise to work alongside completing the MRFT or the MP program? Kevin: This is a really challenging question to answer because I recognize and certainly in this economic climate, that many people will need to work while they also do this program. So I understand that complexity. At the same time, it's been said, and I'll say it again, this is an immersive program. It's two years, 24 consecutive months. In that time, you're going to take 6 practicum, you're going to take 7 academic courses. You're going to accumulate, for the MRFT, up to 450 hours of direct client contact and over 100, you're probably going to do somewhere between 100 and 150 hours of supervision. For the MP, you're going to do up to 350 direct client contact hours. And again, over 100 hours of supervision, you can pretty much, and I spoke about this earlier, we're saying you need 50 to 60 hours a week to be able to attend classes, do the coursework, attend supervision, prepare for supervision, see clients, prepare to see clients, debrief from seeing clients, file meetings, write documentation, which in the beginning takes a lot longer than it does at the end. So these are session notes and reports and so on, as well as, you know, course assignments and so on. So you can sort of think for every client hour, you need another hour, for every hour of supervision you probably need another hour to prepare, and so on. So I understand that people have to work at the same time, this is a professional degree, it's an immersive degree. There is a significant time commitment to it. Emma: And also just to just to be clear, because I did see someone ask if it's possible to do the MRFT or MP part-time. No, those are both full-time programs and it connects to what Kevin was saying about the time commitment to the requirements of the program. So just wanted to be clear about that. Shauna: I have the next question here. Are students from a professional background, social work for example, not suitable for the MRFT and MP programs? Is there something they can do to apply and be competitive? Kevin: So as a general rule for the MRFT and MP programs, we are only accepting people who are not currently regulated to practice the profession or who don't practice the profession. So if there's somebody is a social worker and they're already practicing the profession as a therapist, they would not likely be considered we are again an immersive program with the end intent to help people. You will become regulated by the end of the of the program. That is our intent, to take people who are unregulated and to practice the profession to help them become regulated and trained thoroughly to be able to practice the profession. Tricia: Just to add on there. So what Kevin's also saying is if you did a BSW degree where you're not a clinical focus and not registered as a psychotherapist, you could apply to this program. So the flip of that is important to say. Sarah: Thank you. Is there an opportunity to increase direct client hours from 350 to 450 in the Master of Psychotherapy program? Kevin: Maybe. The 350 is a good target. A lot will really depend on where the externship placement is, the number of clients that we have come in, but also a student's capacity to be able to learn, to develop competency and so on and to be able to see more hours. So it's possible it's not something that we are going to guarantee people. Shauna: I have a question here, what are some career pathways graduates of these programs or similar programs before the revision have taken? Example, private practice agencies, other positions? Kevin: So there's tremendous variety. Graduates of our program have gone on into private practice, obviously have worked in community-based agencies, community mental health, have gone on to work in government. Some people have used this degree to launch into an additional degree; medicine, becoming a lawyer, some that have done that. Many people go on like myself and Emma to teach and continue to train. Hospital settings, family health teams, there's actually quite a wide range of places that people have worked. Emma, do you have anything to add to that? Emma: No. I think that you covered most of the options right now that I can think of right now. But yeah, certainly private practice there, there's many nonprofit agencies and children and youth mental health in particular, but there's also adult mental health as well that a lot of our graduates have moved to. Yeah, but I think that there are, many options in the field of mental health. But certainly I think most of our graduates move into providing therapy, psychotherapy after graduating. Tricia: I am aware of the time. So I think we're going to wrap things up. The one last question I saw–a question regarding supervision, asking that there isn't a specific master's supervisor for the MRFT and MP programs because there's not a research-based thesis required. The question was do you recommend reaching out to faculty before applying as is recommended for other master's programs? And no, we do not recommend that you do that with this one because you don't need to find a supervisor. So please don't because the faculty would be quite overloaded by e-mail. So there is no need to do that. Just noting that if your questions didn't get answered, please don't worry, don't fret. We are going to be putting together these slides with a list of the questions and answers so we can add on answers to the remaining questions that we didn't have time to get to. That will be I believe sent out to everybody who came on to the of the session today and it will also be posted to the website. So you will have access to those answers. We will also be giving you extra information regarding the application process and links to the program websites. We'll be emailing those out the same way we did the information for this webinar. We are moving really quickly to get all of these components done and they're just not quite ready yet. So we will do that. As we mentioned, the hope is that the OUAC applications will open on Monday, November 27th, 2023. Again, there'll be links on the websites and all of that. That will likely be coming out in the next couple weeks, hopefully sooner rather than later. In the meantime, if there are questions that you have, you can also contact our e-mail address rptp@uoguelph.ca with any questions that come up. So I’d just like to thank everyone for coming and for your interest in our programs and to all of the speakers today for the fantastic answers. And I hope to see you on campus in the future. Take care. [End of transcript]