Write Your MLA Campaign - BCPA/PCPsych V2

Recently, the British Columbia Psychological Association (BCPA) submitted a proposal to the government for the Primary Care Psychologist (PCPsych) Program. This program would place psychologists in family doctors’ offices in British Columbia, giving British Columbians access to high quality mental and behavioural healthcare.

 

This exciting program is based on over two decades of research demonstrating the effectiveness and cost-savings of having Psychologists working side-by-side with family doctors. Psychologists provide targeted assessments and treatments for mental health concerns like depression and anxiety, and behavioural health concerns, like having trouble with weight, diet, or smoking.

 

 

Imagine being able to go to your family doctor and also being able to see a trained psychologist who will help you with your concerns right there and then. Whether you are struggling with a chronic illness like diabetes or hypertension, experiencing pain or problems with sleep, or whether you have concerns about your child’s development–a psychologist can help.

 

 

This model of care has been implemented around the world with improved patient outcomes, lower physician burnout, more physician efficiency (meaning more people would have access to family physician services), and an overall cost saving to the economy and healthcare system. What is key about this model is that it is provided by regulated healthcare professionals (psychologists) who understand how to use their specialized training in science-based ways to help patients improve both mentally and physically. 

 

 

Our proposal would capitalize on the knowledge, infrastructure, and training abilities of UBCOs Clinical Psychology program. Health authorities would work in partnership with UBCO to hire, train, and embed 20 full time equivalent (FTE) Psychologists within doctors offices in the Primary Care Networks (PCNs) in our province. 

 

 

Right now, we are in a pandemic, an opioid crisis, and a climate crisis; all of which change the way we think, act, and feel. We also live in a province that does not provide free mental or behavioural health services to the vast majority of its population, leaving people to either pay out of pocket or not receive services at all. It’s time for things to change. If you believe that this proposal is important, please join us in our letter campaign and click 'next'.

Please note that while this is a survey platform, we have designed the survey to act as a letter generator. This means that we will be using your survey answers to generate a letter for you to copy and paste into an email to your MLA. Since we are using SurveyMonkey as our letter generating platform, your information will be collected and stored in our survey results. However, your information will not be used unless you provide us with your explicit consent on the second to last page. If you do not wish to add your personal information to any of the fields in this survey, simply add something else to the required fields (such as a pseudonym) and add in your information after you have pasted the template into a blank email. You may also add or remove any piece of the letter once you have pasted it into your blank email. 
Please also note that the copy and paste function is not compatible on most mobile devices. We strongly recommend completing the survey on a desktop or laptop.

Thank you for your support! If you have any questions or technical difficulties, please contact us at admin@psychologists.bc.ca.