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Counselling Centre

Welcome to the Counselling Department

Thank you for visiting.

Hugh Boyd School Counselling Services can support students and families through a variety of options, interventions and planning tools.  We provide many key services to support mental health, academic success and post-secondary planning. Our goal is to promote, provide and support well-being as advocates of mental health, relationships and development.

Please feel free to browse the information provided on this site and contact our department at your convenience.

COUNSELLING TEAM:

As noted below, each counsellor works with a section of our population that is divided alphabetically by last name.

Mr. Philip Lam

Mr. Rob McDonnell

Ms. Moreen Takada 

Mr. Hans Ng

SEEING A COUNSELLOR:

Counselling appointments can be scheduled by emailing your assigned counsellor or filling out a "I want to see a counsellor..." slip in the counselling office adjacent to the Main Office at Hugh Boyd.

COUNSELLING ROLE:

The Ministry of Education’s Mental Health in School Strategy (MHiS) was introduced in 2021 to both acknowledge and address mental health issues in schools. This strategy is a detailed and all-encompassing approach to building resiliency, fostering wellness, highlighting classroom initiatives and collaborating with mental health professionals outside of the school system.

To view the MHiS document which outlines the Ministry’s objectives, please see this document:

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/erase/documents/mental-health-wellness/mhis-strategy.pdf(link is external)

At Hugh Boyd, we have long been utilizing these same ambitions and ideas to inform our counselling beliefs and practices, emphasizing the importance of mental health promotion in our community.

One of our primary roles is to develop relationships with mental health resources and providers that can offer wraparound services that intervene and prevent threats to mental well-being. At Boyd, we have been working hard over the past 5 years to build these connections and establish an openness and awareness of mental health.

As seen below, the BC School System is a first responder and line of defence in working within a broad scope of mental health practices, and in having this role, we strive to build an increased capacity for understanding and appreciating mental health. 

While we are certainly effective at providing therapies and motivational interventions, our ability to do so on a clinical basis is challenged by demand and obligations outside of ongoing personal therapy. Fortunately, which reflects our mandate to promote mental health, Richmond provides numerous youths, individual and family counselling options that work in collaboration with our department. To maximize efforts in supporting mental wellness, we believe that wrap-around service is best. We urge families to seek these options, in connection with us, to support our students.

External Mental Health Resources and Providers in Richmond:

Below, we have provided links and contact numbers to ones that we feel have been successful in addressing a variety of mental health needs:

Vancouver Coastal Health Child and Adolescent Mental Health Programs

Foundry Richmond Mental Health

Touchstone Family Services

Trauma and Sexual Abuse (TASA) Richmond

Chimo Community Services and Counselling

Kelty Mental Health Resource Centre at BC Children’s Hospital

Richmond Cares Richmond Gives (RCRG)

Richmond Addiction Services (RASS)

Richmond Victim Services

Reset Youth Team

HealthLink BC – Mental Health and COVID-19

Here to Help (COVID-19 and Mental Health Support)

Trans Lifeline – Transexual Youth Supports

Youth in BC Crisis Response – 24 Hour Crisis Line

USEFUL DOCUMENTS:

Course Planning Presentation(link is external)

Vancouver Coastal Health Child and Adolescent Mental Health Programs