Terms of Service

Last updated: September 17, 2026

Island Perinatal Counselling Network

Operated by McGee Wellness Inc.

These terms explain what the Island Perinatal Counselling Network does, what it does not do, and what you can expect from us. They apply when you use our website, contact us, or let us help you find a counsellor.

They are written plainly on purpose, and they are the terms of our service, so please read them. By using our website or our service, you accept these terms.

McGee Wellness Inc. (MWI) privately operates the Island Perinatal Counselling Network. MWI also operates the McGee Therapy Clinic. In these terms, “we,” “our,” and “us” mean the Network. Where something is true of MWI more broadly, or of the Clinic, we say so.

Part 1: Terms for everyone

Why we are here

Becoming a parent and growing a family has many challenges. It can be one of the hardest passages in a person’s life, and it can be difficult to find and access skilled, knowledgeable help in the middle of it. The Network exists to make that part simpler.

We serve people who need counselling and mental health care during their reproductive journey, from planning a conception through to pregnancy, birth, the postpartum months that follow, and any loss that may arise in the process. That includes birthing persons, their partners, adoptive and intended parents, and those who support them. It also includes support for those who are weighing pregnancy options, or seeking emotional support after an abortion. We help people in many situations, from those seeking proactive mental wellness during conception or pregnancy, to those with more immediate or complex needs that call for a reproductive mental health specialist. Wherever you are at, you can come to us.

What we offer is information, connection, and a way forward. We answer your questions. We identify options open to you. We connect you with counsellors in our Network who specialize in perinatal mental health. When needed, we point you to resources or introduce you to counsellors outside the Network.

Our mission is to provide a simple and certain pathway for aspiring, expectant, new, and bereaved parents to access specialized perinatal mental health counselling and care when they need it and can benefit.

If you need help right now

If you need help in a crisis or emergency, call 911 or go to your nearest hospital emergency room. Our crisis help resources page lists others who are available 24/7 if you are approaching or in a crisis.

The Network and its intake office work to connect you with a skilled counsellor when you need counselling right away, but they do not provide crisis or emergency mental health services.

Our counsellor connection services

The Network connects people seeking perinatal mental health care with counsellors who specialize in it. We take referrals from health care providers, and inquiries from people at any point in their reproductive journey, from trying to conceive to parenting toddlers. We listen to what you are looking for, suggest one or more counsellors who fit, answer your questions, and book your first appointment.

Our connection service is free to the people we serve, although fees apply when you receive counselling from a Network counsellor.

Once you are booked, the counselling is between you and your counsellor, and we step back.

What the Network is not

We are not an emergency or crisis service.
See the section above, “If you need help right now.”

The Network is not your counsellor. We do not provide therapy, assessment, diagnosis, or clinical advice. Nothing we say to you is counselling, and nothing on our website is a substitute for care from a qualified professional.

The Network is not a counselling service. We connect you with a counsellor who provides counselling through the practice they own or are part of, whether outside MWI or at the McGee Therapy Clinic, which MWI operates. What happens in counselling is between you and your counsellor, and we do not monitor or oversee the counselling you receive. Clinical Interns and Clinical Fellows at the Clinic are supervised by a registered clinician there. That supervision is a Clinic service that MWI provides; it is not a Network service.

We are not a directory or a platform. We maintain an intake office with a care coordinator to contact you directly in response to referrals and inquiries. There is no online account to create with us, no login, and no portal. If we book you with a counsellor in our Network, we help create an account with a login in your counsellor’s client portal (for example: Jane App or Owl Practice), but this portal is their portal, not ours.

Network and McGee Therapy Clinic

MWI operates both this Network and the McGee Therapy Clinic. They are two services of one company, and they play different roles. The Network books you with a counsellor. Like other practices that are part of the Network, the Clinic has counsellors who provide counselling to their clients. If you are booked with a Clinic counsellor, the Clinic’s therapy agreement with you governs that care, and MWI is the party responsible for it. See “Our responsibility, and its limits” below.

Counsellors at the Clinic include supervised master’s-level student interns and fellows. This allows lower-cost perinatal counselling services that can be accessed through the Network. Through these pre-registered counsellors, the Clinic offers an Affordable Therapy Plan with rates significantly below those of registered counsellors.

Counsellors we identify as Network counsellors (for example, those who are listed on the Network website) provide counselling services independently through the practice they own or are part of, whether through the McGee Therapy Clinic or another clinical practice. When we suggest counsellors to you, we may suggest counsellors who are part of the McGee Therapy Clinic and counsellors who operate outside it.

What we ask of counsellors

Every counsellor in the Network is bound by an agreement with MWI: a Network agreement for counsellors in practices outside the Clinic, and their own agreement with MWI for counsellors at the McGee Therapy Clinic. Under it, they confirm that they:

hold a current licence, registration, or student membership in good standing with a professional college or association, or practise under the supervision of a registered clinician at the Clinic;
carry professional liability insurance, including errors and omissions coverage;
maintain a current vulnerable-sector criminal record check, and have disclosed to MWI any conviction or outstanding charge, so we can consider whether it bears on safe, competent care;
hold the training and specializations they list with us;
practise under the ethical and practice standards of their profession; and
will tell us promptly if any of this changes.

We verify registration, insurance, and the criminal record check, by checking public registers and requesting documents. For training and specializations, we rely on the counsellor’s resume and their confirmation to us, and we may request certificates or training records. We ask counsellors to confirm each year that these things remain true.

Network counsellors generally engage in ongoing clinical consultation with a more seasoned colleague, a practice the Network encourages and supports. We ask about it; we do not verify it, and the consultant carries no responsibility for your counsellor’s work.

What we cannot do is guarantee the outcome of anyone’s care. Counselling is a professional relationship, and the professional judgment in it belongs to your counsellor.

If you ever have a concern about a counsellor’s conduct, you can raise it with them directly, or with their supervisor if they are a Clinical Intern or Clinical Fellow.

As well, you can raise it with their college or association, which is the body that regulates the profession.

If you are uncertain about which body your counsellor is licensed or registered with, you can ask them or us.

Your location

To access the Network, you need to be a resident of British Columbia, or be located in British Columbia. If you are neither, we cannot connect you with a counsellor in our Network.

We serve people anywhere in British Columbia. Our focus is Vancouver Island, where we are based and where we have direct relationships with health care providers. The counsellors in our Network may be based anywhere in the province.

Our website

MWI holds the copyright for the content on our website. It is not available for copying or use by others without our consent. We license some material on our site, such as some of the images, and we are unable to consent to their use. You are welcome to read our content, print it for your own use, and share a link to it.

Our website uses cookies to keep the site working and to count visits. This does not tell us who you are. Some pages embed forms or content from other services, which may set their own cookies. Our Cookie Policy lists what we use and how to manage it.

We keep the site accurate and current as best we can, and we cannot promise it is free of errors or always available. Our site may link to other organizations that we think may help. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for what they contain.

Our responsibility, and its limits

We are responsible for our own conduct in providing the Network’s services: listening, suggesting, booking, and handling your information as our Privacy Policy describes.

Your counsellor, not the Network, is responsible for the care they provide, or do not provide, to you. They are also responsible for their availability, their fees, their cancellation policies, and their business practices. Every Network counsellor accepts this in their agreement with MWI. If you have a claim about your care, it lies with your counsellor and the practice they are part of.

If your counsellor is part of the McGee Therapy Clinic, MWI operates that Clinic. MWI’s responsibility for the Clinic’s services is set out in the therapy agreement the Clinic makes with you, and these terms do not limit it.

Our service is free and limited to connecting you with a counsellor, and our responsibility is limited to match. To the extent BC law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss; for a counsellor’s unavailability, or a match that does not work out; for the content of other organizations’ websites; or for a delay in seeing or answering a message, which is why we ask you to call 911 or use crisis resources in an emergency.

Nothing in these terms of service takes away any right you have under BC law.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The terms posted here are the ones that apply, with the date they were last updated.

The law that applies

These terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the laws of Canada that apply in British Columbia. Disputes belong to the courts of British Columbia.

Part 2: If you are seeking counselling

How our service starts

We do not act on our own. Our service begins when a health care provider refers you to us with your knowledge and consent, or when you initiate contact yourself. On a referral, we usually reach out to you within hours or one business day. Often we connect on the first try. If we cannot reach you after reasonable attempts, or you tell us you do not want our help, we will stop trying to contact you.

We offer the option of scheduling a 10- to 20-minute call with our care coordinator for a confidential conversation about the counsellor, care, and outcomes you are after, and the option to book a counsellor of your choosing during or after that call.

We also act with your consent. When you agree to a referral, or contact us and share information so we can connect you with a counsellor, we treat that as your consent to help you and to use what you tell us for that purpose. That consent continues until you tell us otherwise. You can narrow it or withdraw it at any time, and we will stop.

What we do for you

We help people access perinatal counselling and connect with a specialized perinatal counsellor. Our service works like this.

We listen. You tell us what you are looking for, and as much as you feel comfortable, you can share what you are going through. We take the time to understand your needs and preferences.
We suggest. We put forward service options that may include one or more counsellors in our Network. These are professionals whose skills, availability, approach, and rates we believe fit your situation.
We inform. We offer information about counsellors in the Network, and we answer your questions.
We book. When you are ready, we schedule your first appointment directly in the counsellor’s calendar and confirm it with you.
We support. We pass along what you have told us to the counsellor, so they have some context before you meet. And we do what we can to help ensure you and your counsellor are ready for the first session.

Then we step back. The counselling is between you and your counsellor, as is the administration of future bookings you decide to make.

Choosing when you are ready. We are here to give you what you need to decide, not to press you into deciding. Take the time you want. Ask as many questions as you want. Come back later. If counselling is not the right step right now, or not with us, that is fine, and where appropriate and where we can, we may point you to other resources that provide the support you seek.

Your choice of counsellor

When we have enough information to identify one or more counsellors who can provide care that matches what you are looking for, and who fit your preferences, schedule, and budget, we suggest them to you. We suggest. You choose. We book.

The choice is always yours, and you are free to decline any suggestion, ask about others, or go elsewhere entirely.

We cannot promise that a particular counsellor will be available, that anyone will have openings when you need them, or that a match will be the right fit. If you believe it is not the right fit, tell us. The same applies if the counsellor believes they are not the right fit for you. Either way, we will help you find someone else where we can.

Rarely, we may decide we are not able to help, or to keep helping. That may be because no Network counsellor is a fit for what you need, or because we cannot work together safely. If it happens, we will tell you and point you elsewhere where we can.

What it costs you

Our service is free to you. We do not charge you anything for helping you find a counsellor or for booking your appointment.

Counselling is not free. You pay your counsellor directly for the counselling they provide you, at the rates they set, under whatever agreement you make with them. We will tell you a counsellor’s rates and related policies before you book, and you may review any of these matters with the counsellor directly.

The Network is sustained by counsellors. Where they are not associated with the McGee Therapy Clinic, Network counsellors pay fees for our work to operate the Network and to connect and schedule parents with them. And a portion of the counselling revenue the McGee Therapy Clinic (operated by MWI) receives is used to sustain Network services.

That revenue pays for running the Network: the website, the intake office, the time we spend with referrers and parents, the bookings and external referrals we make, the information we provide to help parents make their decisions, and outreach to widen access to perinatal mental health care.

Affordable Therapy Plan

The McGee Therapy Clinic established the Affordable Therapy Plan to widen access to mental health counselling. It is a Clinic program rather than a Network program, though most of the people it helps are parents in their perinatal period.

The Plan has two tiers.

Counselling with a Clinical Intern or Clinical Fellow. They are master’s-level students or graduates who have not yet obtained registration with a professional counselling association or college. They practise under the supervision of a registered clinician at the Clinic. Because they are not yet registered, their rates sit below the rates of registered counsellors. This can matter if you do not have extended health care benefits. You may also choose an Intern or Fellow because you value contributing to the learning and development of a newer clinician.

A lower cost option for eligible parents. If the fees of an Intern or Fellow are still not affordable or sustainable for you, the Plan offers a further reduced option if you qualify.

You can access either tier by calling the Network intake office.

Funded counselling, if it is available

Where you are eligible, we help you connect with low-cost or no-cost services outside the Network. From time to time we may also have funding from outside donors, grants, or programs that covers some or all of the cost of perinatal counselling if you qualify. Where we do, we connect you to that counselling and administer payment to the counsellor who provides it.

When we hold funding, we say so on our website and tell you who qualifies and how it works. Funding depends on what is available and on your continuing eligibility, and it can end. If you receive funded counselling, we will ask for the information a funder requires to confirm eligibility and to pay your counsellor.

Your information

If we received information about you in a referral, from you directly, or both, then we will have personal information about you.

We will handle the information we receive about you in accordance with British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act. In practice, we minimize what we collect. We limit access to the MWI staff who need it, and we use it only for the purposes it was given for. We ensure it is stored securely. And when the information we hold has served its purposes, we destroy it or strip what identifies you.

If we book you to see a counsellor, we enter the information we received into their secure record system. Your counsellor gives us access for that purpose alone, limited by time and by task: we can create your profile, add information we received or were told, and manage the appointment we booked. We are prohibited from seeing, or unable to see, your counsellor’s clinical notes, and the same is true of the records of anyone we did not book through the Network. From that point the record we create is in the custody of your counsellor and the practice they are part of.

If you come back to us later, we may check when you were booked before, whether you attended, and the intake notes we entered, to help us reconnect you with that counsellor or identify another who meets your current needs.

We may also study how well the Network works, using booking and appointment information. We do that only where your counsellor and we both agree to it, and we first strip out individual identifying information, so the analysis says nothing about you or any other individual.

Our Privacy Policy expands on all of this: what we collect, why, who at MWI can see it, what happens when we hand it to your counsellor, how long we keep it, and how to see or correct it. It forms part of these terms, and our Cookie Policy, which covers our website’s use of cookies, forms part of it.

Ways we communicate

We communicate by phone, text, email, our website form, and fax. Most of the time we start with a phone call and follow up by phone, text, or both, or by whatever way you initiated contact. If you call and do not leave a message, we may call or text you back to let you know we are available to talk. We may also send you a series of emails about the service you requested or the referral you agreed to. Every one of them lets you opt out, and we stop as soon as you do.

We do not use social media to arrange counselling, and we do not monitor it regularly. If you message us there and we see it, we may reply and ask to move somewhere private.

Email, text, and fax are convenient and not fully private; messages can be misdirected, intercepted, or seen by someone with access to your device. Where practical, we keep what we send brief and avoid sensitive detail. If you would rather we contacted you only by one method, only at certain times, or not at all, tell us.

We answer phones from 9 to 5 on regular weekdays. We do our best to answer live and to respond to messages as soon as possible, but we cannot guarantee that we will see your message and respond right away.

After your first booking

Once your first appointment or first set of appointments is booked, your counsellor becomes your point of contact. If you need to change or cancel your first appointment, contact them.

If you reach us instead before that first session, we will help where we reasonably can and let your counsellor know about any change we make.

After you attend your first session, we do not book or change follow-up appointments. That is between you and your counsellor, and if you contact us about it, we will point you back to them.

If you cancel or miss your first appointment and do not re-book, we may follow up with you for a limited time after the date of that appointment, to ask whether you still want help making a new appointment with your counsellor or with finding a different counsellor. If you do not respond, or tell us you have arranged your own care or no longer seek perinatal counselling, we will leave it.

Your part

We ask you to give us accurate information about what you are looking for and how to contact you. We rely on it to communicate with you and to provide you with the services offered by our Network.

Part 3: If you refer patients

Referrals from health care providers

If you are a doctor, midwife, nurse practitioner, or other health care provider who refers patients to the Network, this section is for you.

How to refer. Use our referral form. It asks you to confirm that your patient knows about the referral and agrees to it. Our contact details are on the form.

What happens next. We usually reach out to your patient within hours or one business day, and we respond on regular weekdays, confidentially. A referral lets us make first contact; your patient decides everything after that, and it does not commit them to anything.

Patient-care follow-up. If you ask for a consultation note or a phone consultation, we let your patient’s counsellor know your request has come in so they can respond. In addition, we may confirm that we received your referral.

Consent within the circle of care

Communication about a patient’s care often happens within their circle of care: among the providers directly involved in caring for that patient. Where it is appropriate and of benefit to the patient, we facilitate or take part in such limited communication. We keep the patient aware of it, and we check with them that the sharing continues to align with their wishes.

Referrals that reach the Clinic first

Some patients seeking perinatal counselling reach the McGee Therapy Clinic first, or are referred there. Where it makes sense, and where we tell the patient, we may treat an inquiry or referral to the Clinic as an inquiry or referral to the Network. This way, the full range of Network counsellors is open to your patient, regardless of how they first make contact.

Part 4: Talking to us

Questions about these terms, or about anything else, are welcome.

Island Perinatal Counselling Network

Phone: 778-410-7000
Email: hello@islandperinatal.ca
Fax: 250-472-6762
Web: www.islandperinatal.ca
Mail: 111-645 Fort Street, Victoria, BC V8W 1G2

For requests, questions, or concerns about your personal information, contact our Privacy Officer, whose details are in our Privacy Policy.