Welcome from the President

Welcome to the Idaho Mental Health Counselors Association’s (IMHCA) website!  As the 2019-2020 IMHCA President I am thrilled to be a part of an organization whose focus is on the needs of mental health counselors in Idaho. The IMHCA Board is made up of dedicated and engaged counselors-in-training and professional counselors who work hard to provide useful services to members and to advocate for our profession.

This year IMHCA plans to continue its tradition of:

• Supporting organizations raising public awareness about mental health needs in Idaho such as SPAN (Northern Idaho) and Out of the Darkness Walks (Pocatello and Meridian) in an effort to combat the serious suicide problem we have in Idaho.

• Sponsoring a distinguished speaker at the ICA super conference to continue fostering counselor professional development.

• Mentoring graduate students and actively nurturing the development of their professional counselor identity.

• Running a scholarship contest for counseling graduate students (with two $500 prizes!).

• Providing multiple relevant and high quality ethics trainings.

• Facilitating a members-only peer supervision group worth 1.5 free CEs.

• Maintaining a presence at the IBOL meetings and providing updates from the board’s discussions on issues that impact our members.

 In addition, IMHCA is working to expand its services to members by:

• Partnering with Person Centered Tech Support (PCT) to provide free IMHCA members-only CE presentations, Office Hours sessions, and a 20% discount on PCT’s telebehavioral health CE trainings.

• Increasing our social media presence on more platforms to facilitate member access to information. 
  Facebook               Instagram               Twitter

• Organizing an IMHCA Conference in Northern Idaho planned for April 3, 2020.

Whether you’re a graduate student or a professional, if you are curious about the board, and/or are considering becoming involved, I welcome you to attend a board meeting.  We usually meet the 3^rd Saturday of the month at 9:30a.  Please RSVP to Cassidi Klimek if you are interested in attending so she can confirm the meeting date and location for you.

IMHCA is your association and your professional home. This is where we build relationships, where we identify issues of importance to ourselves and those we serve, where we can influence the future of our profession in Idaho, where we seek collaboration with each other, and where our professional identity continues to evolve. 

I’m looking forward to working with you,

~ Jillian Winters, LCPC