social worker

administrative assistant

youth worker

Qualia Counselling Services

I had a mixed experience working at Qualia. The clinical team at Q6 and Brantford are compassionate, knowledgeable, and kind. They all seem to care about their clients and the work they are doing. I did not feel very supported by management. Qualia is working with a vulnerable population in Q6 and I did not feel like they were providing enough supervision. I had supervision scheduled once per month, and on call if needed, however, the supervisors were usually busy teaching, or taking time off. Management seemed to spread themselves thin between teaching the CBT course, supervising clinicians and running the business. The staff at Q6 recommended more peer support meetings, training focusing on intergenerational trauma, more knowledge on the Indigenous population and local resources. However, none of these resources were provided. There was also not clinical supervision that felt as if it was indigenous informed. The company primarily uses CBT and teaches CBT through Laurier. They did not offer staff any discount for taking these courses and they often made obtaining these courses a condition of working here. However, they did offer pay raises for getting certified. Many of the staff were paid contractors and only made a small portion compared to what the company was given. There was a lot of work that went unpaid, such as session prep and note taking. For employees, they are allocated an hour lunch. If they had to take notes or prep over lunch (sometimes due to having 7 clients in one day), the company did not allow you to earn comp time. They said this work should instead be done on the 3 hours given on one day, or when clients cancel or no show. It felt like an environment where they encouraged you to continue to take on clients, even if you were full. When staff events and socials were hosted, they often were on Friday evenings, which took money away from contractors who usually saw clients on Friday evenings. It also felt as if we were expected to go, on our personal time, unpaid, and often far from the location of the offices. This company has strong admin staff. It felt as if the company was taking advantage of these staff, often blaming them for things outside of their control, or asking them to do tasks that are not common for their position. When the company was hosting a promotional event in the community, management spent most of the event talking in an office, versus being with the staff and community. When I did my interview, I was offered the job on the spot and references were not checked. It seems as if many staff members (past and present) have expressed ideas to make the company stronger, but it seems like management does not take the time to invest in staff or bettering their skills.

I was initiallly excited about the opportunity to work at Qualia after my interview, but this quickly changed once the job began. Days were full seeing clients, which was nice experience, but the company expected you to complete case notes within the hour of seeing clients with no additional compensation (as a contractor). Therefore many unpaid hours were spent each week completing notes. Team meetings were also scheduled each month without pay.
I remember very few training opportunities during my time there, which they said would be frequent in my interview. 
Fellow colleauges were all very nice. However, it was hard to develop a positive, close-knit work environment/culture due to business and pressure to retain clients. 
The company seemed to evaluate your performance significantly on retention rate (i.e. how many sessions your clients had). 
Management were to apparently provide monthly supervision, but this was often cancelled or rescheduled due to their busniess either teaching or running the business. I did get the feeling their primary focus was on making money...almost felt like a pyramid scheme, given how busy clinicians were (and how little we were compensated). 

I have been at Qualia for a few years and unfortunately it has declined over the years. What was once a close community of professionals and growth has now become a place that focuses more on business, money, and greed. As the company has grown it seems to have forgotten the clinicians . Now, you simply go to work, see as many clinicians as THEY tell you to see, go home, then repeat.
The colleagues are amazing. Great people who love the job. However, Management often focuses more on the business than the clinician and ultimately the clients. Feel unappreciated, under valued, and jeopardizes the integrity of the Cognitive Behaviour Therapy therapeutic modality. Often focuses on fitting any mental health struggle to CBT; rather than referring out to other modalities that specialize in those mental health struggles.
What once was a great place of work, full of value, appreciative, and community, has now become a place of bullying, control and power, and greed.

Horrible place to work. They tell you a bunch of lies during the interview, and take pride on firing as many people as they can for no reason. Manager was bragging about the 2 people she fired before I started there. Claimed it was a family environment, definitely isn’t. All everyone does (especially management) will walk around complaining to everyone about how “useless” everyone is. Will sit around and make fun of clients with each other. Nobody communicates, and a lot of them talk behind each other’s backs and make up lies. They Fabricate stories in order to wrongfully terminate staff, except the stories they make up in order to get someone fired, don’t even make sense. Would never in my life recommend working for these people. Stay as far away as possible from them!

What is the best part of working at the company?
Amazing place to work.  Supportive and encouraging of growth and development in skills and in roles. Amazing work environment.   The best part of working here is the constant support and the supervisors opportunities. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The work can be hard counselling can be difficult and triggering at times.  People’s stories are both inspiring and difficult. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Supportive, encouraging, equitable, and fun. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Amazing. Lots of connection and lots of support 
It can be demanding but as well heart breaking.  Lots of energy and passion

Qualia is a great place to work. Support is offered by admin staff, colleagues, and management. Qualia provides supervision and offers meetings where teaching, learning, and coaching occur, which is available to all of their clinicians. Qualia genuinely cares about the well being of their staff and clients. Qualia supports staff in their personal and professional development. Qualia obtains feedback from clients about client care and their experiences. This feedback is requested for quality assurance and it is used to improve client services. The work culture is supportive and the staff are a wonderful bunch of people.

Flexible contractor hours that meet work/life balance. CBT training course an additional cost but worthwhile education for the clinician as well as the clients being served. Management is known as the Leadership Team (LT) and all value their recruits. Ongoing and frequent supervision is an example of how invested the LT is toward their employees. As a new recruit the greatest challenge was attempting to synthesize the new CBT material with ongoing client sessions, but the LT and workplace culture very collaborative and supportive. Great place to work and learn while helping others.

They only care about how many clients they can get. It is very difficult to focus on doing a good job while worrying about how you can get your client to book the next session.  They lost sight of their purpose by focusing on making money, All what they care about is NUMBERS, they put you under a lot of  pressure to get clients to come back, good to have experience but get out of there when you can

The company emphasizes its in-house training and supervision as a selling point, but I found it to be very limited and unsatisfactory. Many clinicians seemed to be overworked and underpaid, and the management and owners are only there to present new policies and rules. They have cultivated a strong network of referrals from family physicians, so they are always trying to pressure clinicians to take on more younger clients. Some decisions made by management seemed unethical, and there is a very high turnover rate for clinicians. 

Pros
Colleagues are super supportive and friendly 
Management is always willing to help and make themselves available 
Safe work environment 
Great hourly wage 
Lots of collaboration within organization 

Cons
As a contractor, can be difficult to complete all notes in the paid hour, So notes are often needed to be completed at home- which becomes very time consuming 

Not always getting as many hours as you’d like- but this isn’t Qualia’s fault. It’s just the nature of being a contractor and availability of clients

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Social worker 1 salary reported	$75.00 per hour
Administrative assistant 4 salaries reported	$41,500 per year
Youth worker 3 salaries reported	$67.50 per hour

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