News

On June 1, 2017 Bill 89 (“Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act”) passed third reading and received Royal Assent in the Ontario legislature.

What is the purpose of this Act?

This Act is intended to replace the Child & Family Services Act (1990), which will be repealed in the next few years. A number of regulations will be finalized and implemented over the next two years.

The purpose of the new Supporting Children, Youth and Families Act (2017) is:

We were delighted to welcome Dr. Marjory Phillips as our new CMHR Director on January 2, 2018. Dr. Phillips is an alumnus of the University of Waterloo Doctoral Training Program in Clinical Psychology (1993). She has held a variety of senior management and clinical service positions during her 24-year professional career, during which she has developed a stellar reputation both here in Ontario and across the country for her professional and clinical leadership within the field of psychology. Prior to taking up her new position at the CMHR, Dr. Phillips served as a senior Director at the Child Development Institute in Toronto, where she was responsible for mental health intervention services, program development, implementation, and research and evaluation of innovative evidence-informed programs for children and youth, with particular interests and expertise in the areas of learning disabilities and models of clinical supervision. Previously, Dr. Phillips was the founder and Director of the psychology training clinic for graduate students at Queen’s University.

The students and faculty gathered in the Centre for Mental Health Research on September 29, 2017 to bid farewell to our CMHR Director, Dr. Ian Nicholson. We are grateful to Ian for his dedicated service to CMHR training and education, clinical services, and research.

The Centre for Mental Health Research was pleased to host Dr. Carole Sinclair for a workshop on “Revisions to the Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists, Fourth Edition (CPA, 2017)". Dr. Sinclair, chair for the last several years of the Canadian Psychological Association Ethics Committee, walked through the history of the code and how it has developed to meet the needs of our profession in Canada.

The Centre for Mental Health Research is proud that the important service with refugee mental health provided by one of the Department of Psychology's doctoral student's, Brenda Chiang, and one of our adjunct faculty, Dr. Nicole Ethier, is highlighted in the current issue of the Faculty of Arts' publication for its alumni and friends, Arts & Letters.

Working with the University of Waterloo Recreation Committee,  clinical psychology graduate students gave a series of three talks in July of this year for the community within our university. A series of talks on topics such as “Mental Health 101: Facts, Myths, and Resources”, “Understanding and Overcoming Depression and Anxiety”, and “Mental Health in Childhood and Parenting” attracted a range of people from across campus, with over 50 people in attendance over the series. Combining lectures, videos, and interactive discussions with those in attendance, the presentations were all well received. 

Earlier this month, at the Canadian Psychological Association’s 78^th National Convention in Toronto, the University of Waterloo’s Clinical Psychology students were a strong presence. Our students were involved in 9 posters and 3 talks during the three days of the convention at the Fairmont Royal York.

Clinical graduate students were strong representatives of the Department of Psychology at this year’s 7^th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Cognitive & Behavioural Therapies held in mid-May in Ottawa, ON.