Our Legislative Mandate
The Nova Scotia Counselling Therapists Act, establishes the College’s mandate to,
- Serve and protect the public interest
- Preserve the integrity of the profession
- Maintain public confidence in self-regulation
How We Fulfill Our Mandate
Unlike a professional association or trade union, the College does not represent the interests of individual Counselling Therapists, and may only promote the profession when doing so is clearly in the public interest. In Nova Scotia the College of Counselling Therapists (NSCCT) fulfills our legal mandate by ensuring that:
- only fully qualified individuals who have met rigorous academic and clinical practice standards are licensed by the College
- all registrants adhere to recognized Standards of Practice, a prescribed Code of Ethics and practice to a level described in the NSCCT Entry-to-Practice Competency Profile
- all registrants meet the requirements for on-going skills maintenance and continuing education
- the public has access to a robust and objective Complaint and Professional Conduct process to investigate complaints against registrants and impose disciplinary measures where appropriate.
Title Protection
In order to help protect the public from unlicensed mental health providers, the Counselling Therapists Act, provides Registered Counselling Therapists with “title protection.” This means that only properly educated and licensed individuals are legally authorized to use the designations: “Counselling Therapist,” “Registered Counselling Therapist” (or “RCT”), “Registered Counselling Therapist – Candidate” (or “RCT-C”). It also prohibits anyone other than an RCT from describing the services they provide as “counselling therapy.”
You can help us protect the public and the integrity of the profession from misleading, dangerous and illegal title fraud. If you suspect someone might be using any of these titles, or advertising “counselling therapy” services, without being licensed to do so, please report it here.