Our practicum interns help support the financially accessible counselling that we offer through our sliding-scale counselling program.  Our program is unique in that we do not limit the number of lower-cost sessions to a specific number.  This allows clients who could not otherwise afford long-term counselling to delve into deeper work (such as trauma work) which may require a longer period to build trust and readiness.

At Dragonstone, we seek to serve everyone in need of counselling services, creating a welcoming space for diversity.  We have clients of all ages, as well as some couples and families (although not all of our interns must work with all of these demographic groups). Our interns must be able to navigate neurodiversity, gender and sexual diversity, and cultural diversity, or work to develop competency in these areas.  We welcome interns who can work with clients in multiple languages (although this is not a requirement).  Dragonstone operates from an anti-oppressive and social-justice oriented lens, and we are generally client-centred.  We support interns to work from their own theoretical orientations (whenever possible), but we also encourage learning about other, complementary approaches through supervision.

Interns at Dragonstone will have the opportunity to work with individuals, relationships, and families if desired, as well as to develop a group to co-facilitate with another intern (if desired).  Interns can work online as well as in-person.

Interns will develop skills in negotiating sliding scale services with clients and in working within a private practice setting, including setting up appointments and using Jane.app.

We accept interns (typically practicum students who are in graduate-level counselling programs) into our internship program three times per year, generally in the Spring (May, not in 2023), Fall (September), and Winter (January) although exact start dates are somewhat flexible.  We typically have four new interns in each cohort.  We ask that our interns commit to a one-year placement, regardless of the length of their school practicum course(s) or the completion of their minimum required hours.