Explore our upcoming courses for what will align with your professional development and learning goals. Be sure to check this page often to keep an eye out for new courses and additional offerings of past courses.
Ongoing Programs
Mental Health and Substance Use – Level 1
- Start date: December 1, 2025
- Format: 100% online, self-paced, instructor-supported with monthly optional real-time sessions
- Duration: Two courses of approximately 30 hours of content each, with six months to complete each course from start date
- Cost: $750 per course, $1,500 for the program
Click HERE to learn more and register
Description:
Frontline workers across various sectors often lack adequate training to effectively support clients with mental health and substance use challenges. This skills gap limits their effectiveness and highlights the need for accessible, targeted training programs for a diverse workforce.
The new UBC Micro-certificate in Mental Health and Substance Use is a part-time, asynchronous, online program designed to provide learners with the foundational knowledge and core skills they need to effectively and ethically engage in frontline service provision to individuals experiencing mental health and substance use challenges in multiple service contexts.
This program was developed by clinicians with many years of experience and expertise in mental health and substance use practice. Consultations with internal and external organizations, including the First Nations House of Learning, further contributed to ensuring that the program provides a relevant, applied, and culturally-informed learning experience.
By the end of the program, you will be able to:
- Identify and assess mental health symptoms and substance use challenges at a foundational level
- Develop foundational skills and strategies for effective and ethical engagement with individuals experiencing mental health and substance use challenges
- Describe and examine the social determinants of mental health and substance use, and methods to support holistic recovery
- Apply trauma-informed, strengths-based, and anti-oppressive approaches to engagement with individuals experiencing mental health and substance use challenges
This free workshop offers a chance to experience the teaching approach behind our self-paced, online UBC micro-certificate in Mental Health and Substance Use.
- Date: September 17, 2026
- Time: 12-1:30pm
- Location: Virtual – Zoom session
- Cost: FREE
Stay tuned for registration details.
In-person Courses
Virtual Courses
Peer Ethics Consultation and Moral Distress Debriefing
Date: October 9, 2026
Time: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
CEU: 6 hours
Location: Virtual – Zoom session
Cost: $180
Audience:
Learners who are in clinical practice and encounter complex ethical challenges and moral distress in their practice. This includes social workers, nurses, physicians, therapists and clinical practitioners in various fields of practice.
Course Description:
Participants in this course will increase their understanding of the nature of ethical issues they face in clinical practice and how Peer Ethics Consultation (PEC) can effectively help in addressing those issues. This course will support clinicians with identifying and making use of their existing moral expertise, grounded in the professional values that inform their practice. Learning the skill to facilitate PEC will equip participants to support their team in resolving ethical dilemmas they encounter in clinical practice and identify more complex issues they could escalate to more specialized ethics consultation, if needed and possible. This learning will be valuable in supporting ethical clinical decision making in complex practice situations, and the moral wellness of practitioners and teams.
An integral part of PEC is attending to moral distress encountered in practice and during the facilitation of ethics conversations. Learners will develop skill in moral distress debriefing using the evidence-based REViVe tool. REViVe is an acronym for conversations that involve:
- Reviewing causes of moral distress,
- Exploring values that were compromised and those still intact,
- Validating new strategies to mitigate moral distress,
- integrating new meaning in the face of compromised values, and
- Vitalizing enablers to making positive change in your practice and the health system.
These conversation points correspond to the four key elements of effective moral distress debriefing (Shashidhara & Kirk 2020) that include identifying causes of moral distress, exploring emotions, evaluating coping strategies, and identifying an action plan (next steps). This learning will be valuable in supporting your use of Trauma and Resiliency Informed Practice (TRiP).
Learning Objectives:
- Learn to describe the nature of ethical dilemmas in order to identify opportunities and methods to address them.
- Develop skills for facilitating Peer Ethics Consultation (PEC), and consider how these skills can be applied to your area of practice.
- Develop skills for Ethics First Aid, and consider how these skills can be applied to your area of practice.
- Develop skills for making effective referrals for ethics consultation.
- Develop skills for moral distress debriefing and consider how this can be applied to your practice and with your interdisciplinary team.
Leadership Skills for Responding to Workplace Complaints and Concerns
Date: October 30, 2026
Time: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
CEU: 6 hours
Location: Virtual – Zoom session
Cost: $180
Audience:
This workshop is ideal for social workers, supervisors, managers, and leaders across practice settings who receive concerns or complaints about staff, colleagues, students, volunteers, or services, and who are responsible for gathering information, responding to concerns, and providing feedback within teams or organizations.
Course Description:
This experiential course focuses on the practical skills required to receive and respond to workplace and practice-related concerns, conduct effective interviews, and provide feedback in ways that support learning, accountability, and relationship preservation. Whether responding to a complaint from a client or family member, interviewing a staff member about a workplace concern, or providing constructive feedback following a difficult interaction, participants will explore how to approach these conversations with curiosity, clarity, and care.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Conduct structured, thoughtful trauma-informed interviews that support effective information gathering while maintaining rapport.
- Respond to complaints in a way that balances clarity, fairness, and relationship preservation.
- Understand the reasons behind complaints and how they impact workplace harmony.
- Apply a social work leadership lens to decision-making in complaint and feedback processes.
- Deliver appreciative and constructive feedback that supports growth, accountability, and engagement.
- Recognize and manage their own responses during challenging conversations to remain grounded and effective.
Building a Sustainable Private Practice: Clinical, Ethical, and Business Foundations for Therapists and Social Workers
Date: November 26-27, 2026
Time: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm PST
CEU: 12 hours
Location: Virtual – Zoom sessions
Cost: $360
Audience:
Social workers, psychotherapists, counsellors, psychologists, nurses, clinical supervisors, and clinical professionals who are considering private practice or seeking to strengthen an existing practice.
Course Description:
Building a Sustainable Private Practice is a two-day course that integrates research, professional standards, and practical tools for developing an ethical, effective, and financially viable psychotherapy practice. Participants will examine documentation, outcome monitoring, referrals, professional visibility, fees, supervision, and countertransference. The course also addresses accessibility, professional isolation, burnout, perfectionism, and imposter syndrome while helping participants develop an individualized plan for launching or strengthening their practice.
Learning Objectives:
By the end of this program, participants will be able to:
- Identify the legal, ethical, regulatory, and operational requirements for establishing and maintaining a private practice.
- Apply psychotherapy effectiveness research, supervision, and reflective practice to strengthen clinical decision-making and quality improvement.
- Develop sustainable approaches to professional visibility, referrals, networking, fee-setting, cancellations, accessibility, and financial planning that reflect their professional identity, values, and social justice commitments.
- Create an individualized implementation roadmap for launching, strengthening, or advancing a psychotherapy practice.
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