Staff Members

Sara Clarke is our new C.V.C.C.S. Executive Director and she feels privileged to join our EFAP team and to serve our members and Board of Directors.  Sara is new to the West Kootenays and brings with her fourteen years of clinical and direct community based counseling support to children, youth and adults in both a staff and managerial capacity.  Sara is a strong supporter of the EFAP non-profit organizational structure and has spent her entire career working exclusively for community based non-profit organizations.

Sara is familiar with unique needs of rural Canadian communities having been a therapist in the Muskoka region of Ontario and in the Sea to Sky (Squamish, Whistler, Pemberton) region of British Columbia.  Sara has provided out-post support to remote aboriginal communities and having spent her early childhood living on a reserve has an interest in First Nation social issues.

Sara's career has focused on innovative community based therapeutic programming for adults, children and their families.  Sara had the opportunity to be part of a pilot project which developed a Behaviour/Communication approach to the assessment and treatment of challenging behaviours as part of the community living movement and de-institutionalization process.  Sara is experienced in group therapy facilitation including anger management, anxiety reduction/relaxation, self-esteem building and assertiveness training, communication, sexuality and relationships.  Sara has also supervised group homes for individuals with developmental and/or mental health challenges and served as the Infant Development Consultant for the Sea to Sky region for four years.  She has extensive interest, training and experience in child development, children's mental health, parenting and early intervention.

Sara welcomes input/enquires from all members and potential members and looks forward to meeting the Member Organizations and their EFAP Committees and/or EFAP Representatives.

 Bill Fehr - MSC (psychology), BSW, RSW - is one of our  new Counsellors at CVCCS -  Bill's  background includes work in a  variety of industrial settings prior to working as  a  counsellor.   Prior to his career as a counsellor he has  worked as a truck driver, a dairy herdsmen, a letter carrier for Canada Post, a warehouseman, to name a few.  He has a good  understanding of the needs and concerns of both labor and management.

He holds a Bachelor of Social Work Degree and a Masters of Science in Clinical Psychology.  He has earned certificates in Family Mediation and in Critical Incident Stress Debriefing.  Bill has worked in a variety of non profit organizations providing counselling services to targeted disadvantaged populations.  These include working with physically and intellectually challenged persons, disadvantaged youth, immigrant populations, and people with addictions and criminal pasts.

Bill's work in private practice includes contracts to the Weyerhaeuser Employee Family Assistant Program, to the Federal Government Employee Assistance Service program, and to the Critical Incident Stress Debriefing team of the Medical Services Branch.  Bill has worked extensively with First Nations communities as a community therapist.  Bill is also knowledgeable in program development, developing and delivering workshops and seminars.  He has presented at a number of conferences on issues of trauma, intergenerational issues related to cycles of violence, suicide intervention, stress management and anger.

Bill's clinical experience includes couples work, crisis and suicide intervention, sexual abuse counselling for victim and offender, grief, anxiety and depression counselling.  Bill works as a motivator and as a coach for personal change.  He uses an eclectic approach with clients that draws from formal training in Cognitive-Behavioral, Reality Therapy, Rational Emotive, Narrative and Phenomenological.