As seen in The Vancouver Sun:
Anyone in British Columbia can build a website and sell their services as an “interventionist” promising to rescue people from the throes of addiction and get them into care.
In fact, without government regulation, anyone can claim to be a mental health professional, use the name “counsellor” or “therapist”, set up a private practice and charge whatever they want.
The problem has festered for at least two decades. But now, it has taken on more urgency as the province enters the third year of a public health emergency due to the illicit-drug overdose crisis, and an increasing number of grifters are taking financial advantage of desperate families willing to pay anything if it helps their loved ones.
There are legitimate addiction counsellors and therapists who do interventions. But with no provincial registry, no standards, no enforcement of standards or codes of conduct, it’s impossible to know who they are and whether a person’s claimed experience or the alphabet soup of real or imagined qualifications tacked on after his or her name are legitimate.
Full article here: Daphne Bramham: The missing harm-reduction measure? Regulating mental health professionals