Alberta Join Our Team
If you're a psychologist looking for a Calgary practice to work out of, this page is for you.
Alberta Counselling Centre is a Calgary psychology practice providing psychoeducational assessments, ADHD & Autism assessments, EMDR and trauma & PTSD therapy, and counselling for individuals, couples, and families. We bring on additional psychologists as independent contractors when our caseload demands it — this page describes how that arrangement works.
A bit about our practice
We've been seeing clients in South Calgary since 2015, out of our main office at 280 Midpark Way SE in Midnapore. Our work is a mix of psychoeducational assessments (children, adolescents, and adults), EMDR, trauma, and PTSD therapy, individual counselling, couple and marriage counselling, and family therapy. We're approved providers for Veterans Affairs Canada (VAC), the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF), the RCMP, and IRCC.
Our existing team is described on our Our Psychologists page, and a sense of what we charge is on our Fees page. Both are good context before reading further.
How our working arrangement works
Psychologists who work with us do so as independent contractors. The short version of the arrangement is this: we provide the practice — the office, the reception, the billing software, and the marketing that brings clients in — and you provide the clinical work. We split the session fee on a percentage basis. There is no rent, no desk fee, and no monthly membership.
You set your own hours and decide your own availability. You can take on as many or as few clients as you'd like, and you're free to work at other practices* at the same time if that suits you. Our job is to make our scheduling work around yours, not the other way around.
Your clinical work is your own: you choose your modalities, write your own notes, and maintain your own professional records (consistent with CAP standards).
* With some distance-based limitations.
What we provide
- The office. A professional, well-appointed therapy office at 280 Midpark Way SE, Calgary, with private session rooms, a comfortable reception area, and complimentary coffee, tea, and water for clients.
- A kitchen and team break-room. Somewhere to step away between sessions, grab a coffee, write notes, or have lunch.
- A full-time receptionist. Phone calls, intake inquiries, scheduling changes, payment processing, follow-ups, and the constant small stuff that interrupts a clinical day are handled at the front desk — not by you.
- Practice-management software (Jane). A Jane account on our subscription. Client charts, scheduling, billing, credit card processing on file, online booking, and insurance receipts are already set up and running.
- Marketing and client intake. This is where a large amount of our time, money, and effort goes. Our website, our SEO and content work, our Google presence, our reviews, our referral relationships, and our reputation in the community are how clients find us in the first place. We don't expect you to bring in your own clients — we'll help with that.
- Approved-provider status. We are approved providers for VAC, the CAF, the RCMP, and IRCC, which opens up referral streams that are difficult to access as a solo practitioner.
- A team to consult with. Informal case consultation with colleagues who do similar work, when you want it.
What you handle
- Your clinical work. Sessions, modalities, treatment planning, reports, and feedback meetings.
- Your own registration and standing. Your CAP practice permit, malpractice / professional liability insurance, and CPD.
- Your own notes and records. Kept in your charts in Jane.
- Your own taxes. As a contractor, you invoice for your share of session fees and handle your own income tax and (where applicable) GST/HST treatment of services.
Why we structure it this way
We share an incentive with you, on purpose. We don't make money unless you do — and we don't break even on you until well after you've started making money yourself. Marketing budgets, the office, software, tablets, assessment materials, and reception all cost us money every month regardless of whether your schedule is full. The only way that cost gets covered is if clients are actually being seen.
That alignment matters in practical ways. It is in our direct interest to make sure that:
- You are as busy as you'd like to be — not busier, not quieter;
- The clients you see are well-matched to your areas of practice, so they get good care and you do work you're good at.
And above all: clients keep coming back because they had a good experience and felt genuinely cared for. A client's wellbeing is the whole point of what we do — everything else (the marketing, the matching, the office, the way we've structured this arrangement) exists to make that possible. We want our clients to feel that they were treated as people, not as appointments, and we structure the practice with that in mind.
Our share of session fees is higher than what you'd typically pay in a collective, and we want to be straightforward about that. The trade-off is what's behind it: getting and keeping clients is the hard part of running a private practice. It isn't as simple as putting up a website and waiting for the phone to ring. The work, the time, and the budget that goes into a busy, well-run intake pipeline is real, and in our experience it tends to leave the practitioner with a better financial outcome than the alternative. If you don't have any clients, the percentage you keep doesn't matter much.
It's worth being honest about one more thing: a number of practices like ours have been moving toward a collective-style model in recent years, and we understand why. Running a busy clinic on a percentage of sessions carries real financial risk for the practice owner — a collective's flat rent and membership fees are steadier, more predictable income, and frankly easier to make. We've stuck with the percentage model anyway, because we think the alignment it creates is the right one for everyone involved: it keeps us on the hook for doing the work that matters, and it keeps everyone — us, you, and the client — pulling in the same direction.
How this differs from a "collective" (FAQ)
Calgary has a number of psychology and counselling "collectives," and they're a legitimate option — just a different one. The questions below come up often enough that it's worth spelling out the difference.
Do you charge rent, a desk fee, or a monthly membership?
No. A typical collective will charge a flat rent or monthly membership fee, sometimes in addition to a percentage on top. That means the collective makes money whether you have a busy week or no clients at all. We don't operate that way. Our only revenue from your practice is a share of completed sessions.
Am I expected to do my own marketing or bring my own clients?
No. In a collective, marketing and client acquisition are normally your responsibility — you're essentially running a solo practice that happens to share space (and you are not getting paid for that additional work and expense). Here, the marketing is ours. Of course, you're welcome to bring referrals or maintain your own professional network, but you aren't expected to, and you don't need to in order to be busy.
"They told me I can keep my clients if I leave the collective." Isn't that generous?
That's worth thinking about carefully. If, as part of that collective, you did the work to bring those clients in — your network, your marketing, your hours building a referral base — there's a strong case for keeping them. The collective didn't deliver them to you in the first place; it rented you a room. The "you can keep your clients" pitch makes sense for an arrangement in which the practitioner is the entire business.
At our practice it's the other way around: client acquisition is something we put real time and money into, and the relationship a client has is with the practice and with you.
Do collectives offer paid courses and add-on programs?
Many do. Course fees, workshop fees, supervision packages, and "membership tiers" are common revenue streams for collectives, and they're paid by the practitioner. None of those exist here. We make our money the same way you do — from sessions seen.
Why is the percentage you keep higher than a collective's?
Because we're doing more of the work, and carrying more of the risk. A collective rents you a chair; we're running an active practice that finds clients, schedules them, processes payment, and works to retain them. When you back out marketing, software, reception, empty hours, intake follow-up, and the time spent on a website and SEO program that has to be maintained continuously, the costs of a busy practice are substantial. Our split reflects that.
Whether that ends up being a better deal for you than a collective comes down to one thing: how busy you actually are. A 70/30 split is great when you're at 25 hours a week; it's not great when you're at 4. In our experience, practitioners working out of a busy, well-marketed practice tend to net more than they would have keeping a larger share of a thinner case-load.
It's worth turning that question around, too. If you're already filling 25 hours a week in a collective, what is the 30% actually buying you? At that point you've effectively proven you can keep a schedule full on your own — which means you could open your own practice, pay flat rent and your own software, and keep essentially all of what you bill. Collectives tend to suit the practitioner who doesn't really need them; they tend to be hardest on the newer practitioner who's still trying to build a caseload and is the one responsible for the marketing that builds it.
Do I set my own hours? Can I work at multiple practices at the same time?
Yes to both. You decide your own availability and you're welcome to keep a practice or contract elsewhere* at the same time.
Interested? Get in touch.
If any of this sounds like a fit, we'd be glad to talk. The best first step is a short, no pressure conversation about what you're looking for, where you are in your career, and whether the kind of work we have is the kind of work you want to be doing.
You can reach us through our confidential contact form, by email at info@albertacounselling.ca, or by phone at (587) 352-3222. Please mention that you're enquiring about joining the team so the message comes to the right person.
We'll respond, ask a few questions about your registration and the kind of work you do, and — if it looks like there's a fit on both sides — arrange a time to meet in person at our Midnapore office.