Counselling for BCEHS Paramedics and Dispatchers — At No Cost to You
Most calls you handle and move on from. But some get under your skin in a way that’s hard to explain — and sometimes it’s not one call but the slow accumulation of years of them.
I am a contracted clinical counsellor with BC Emergency Health Services’ Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) program. If you’re a BCEHS paramedic or dispatcher, counselling through the CISM program costs you nothing — I invoice BCEHS directly. There’s nothing for you to navigate financially.
I offer in-person sessions in Squamish and online sessions across BC.
About my background
My connection to emergency services started through over a decade of volunteer work with Squamish Search and Rescue (SSAR), working in the field alongside paramedics and first responders. I know the culture — the dark humour, the compartmentalizing, the way you debrief on the drive back and then walk through your front door and act like everything is fine.
I also know the particular worry that many paramedics and dispatchers carry into a therapist’s office: that the details of your calls will be too much for someone who wasn’t there. They won’t be. I’ve sat with those stories many times. You don’t need to protect me from what you’ve seen.
What I can help with
BCEHS paramedics and dispatchers come to me with:
- Calls that got under your skin — ones that shook your sense of how things should go, or just won’t fade the way other calls have.
- The slow accumulation of years of difficult calls — not any one event, but the weight of all of them together
- PTSI (Post Traumatic Stress Injury) and operational stress injuries
- Sleep difficulties, hypervigilance, emotional numbing
- Relationship and family strain from shift work and carrying work home
How I work
There’s no single approach that works for everyone, and I don’t believe in applying one method across the board. What matters is finding what fits for you.
For some people, EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) is a good fit — it’s a well-researched, evidence-based treatment for PTSD and critical incident stress that is widely used with first responders. EMDR works directly with how traumatic memories are stored in the nervous system, and it doesn’t require you to talk through every detail of what happened in order to process it. For others, EMDR doesn’t feel right — and that’s fine too.
I also work somatically — paying attention to how stress and trauma live in the body, not just the mind. For many people who work in high-adrenaline environments, this is where the real work is: learning to recognize what your nervous system is doing and building more capacity to settle after activation.
Sometimes the most useful thing is simply having a space to talk through what’s been building — not every session needs to be processing work. Some people need to debrief, make sense of things, or just not have to manage how the other person in the room is reacting to what they’re describing.
I work with Focusing-Oriented approaches as well — a gentler, body-based method for people who want to slow down and listen to what’s happening internally rather than pushing through it.
Sessions are practical, direct, and grounded in respect for what you do.
How it works
- Contact the BCEHS CISM program to get authorization for counselling — call 1-855-969-4321
- Book your first session online or contact me with any questions
- Meet in person in Squamish or online anywhere in BC
- I invoice BCEHS directly — there is no cost to you
Other First Responders Welcome
I also work with firefighters, active RCMP members, municipal police, and search and rescue workers. If you’re a first responder whose coverage doesn’t fall under the BCEHS CISM program, sessions can be billed through your extended health benefits or privately. Reach out and we can figure out what works for your situation.
When You’re Ready
If something here resonates, reach out. What you’re carrying doesn’t have to stay where it is — and there’s often more room for change than it feels like from the inside.
You can book a session directly, or start with a free 15-minute phone consultation — no commitment required.
In-person counselling in Squamish and throughout the Sea to Sky corridor — online sessions available to BCEHS employees across BC.