Child & Family Therapist (RP, RSW, CPsych, CYW)

About NowWhat Supports

We’re fishing with a very particular kind of bait, because we’re looking for a very particular kind of therapist.  If you have been longing for a way to practice that aligns with your values and offers more freedom and creativity than you can typically find in traditional therapeutic clinics - then read on … and may the force be with you!

NowWhat is a flexible, supportive, and joyful working environment, with our main family site located in a beautiful big house in downtown Ancaster serving mainly children and families, and our newer, accessible satellite site in the Ancaster Business Park serving mainly our teen and adult psychotherapy clients.  We’re currently celebrating our 10th year of existence, and we are excited about the next stage of our evolution. This position is emerging out of our plan to strategically move our senior therapists up into true supervision roles.

We are a neuro-inclusive, out-of-the-box, alternative clinic that provides holistic and creative clinical, social, and educational support to humans across the life span in a range of domains, including general counselling and psychotherapy (depression, trauma, anxiety, OCD, transition, loss, identity, career change/burnout & return to work, gender navigation etc) as well as ADHD & executive function, social communication, emotion regulation, sex and relationships, and divorce/separation care. We’re truly collaborative - consulting and referring regularly across disciplines to build effective support plans that consider the whole person and their family context. Each professional is valued for their expertise and contribution, and enjoys a balance of autonomy and team support.

Fair warning: we’re a little … different.  Many of us are neurospicy ourselves (we’ve got a sampling of all the flavours), and we co-create our work environment to try to leverage each person’s strengths and scaffold their weaker spots.  We are continually working towards a truly developmental, family-systems approach across all domains, demographics and practice areas, leveraging and adapting the best bits out of a variety of modalities.  We want to attract working partners who are passionate about all people as whole and worthy humans; who don’t view folk as fix-it projects, but who will champion ‘minds of all kinds’ creatively and compassionately.  We customize support plans to meet the needs of each family that comes through our doors - which takes real maturity, willingness, and flexibility from our team. 

We’re not the right workplace for everyone - and that’s OK.

We are committed to holding inclusive, affirming, and non-judgmental space for both staff and clients, approaching therapy with a strong developmental & relationship-driven lens. We value radical honesty and epic bravery. We have a particular focus on removing the barriers that can hinder access to therapeutic services for neurodivergent folk, and our passion is helping people process challenges helpfully and build the skills they need to act effectively so they can enjoy a rich and meaningful life - whatever that looks like for them.  BUT ACTUALLY THOUGH.  #NotJustLipService #HarderThanItSounds #TotallyWorthIt

We’re a social enterprise, driven by people & values before profit - we exist to better our community and to provide living wages and an inclusive work environment to every member of our team. Our co-founder has the words 'radical honesty, epic bravery' tattoed on her forearm - these are the values we're trying to live by and are looking for in new team members.

Our in-house team currently includes:

• Registered Social Workers & Social Service Workers
• Registered Psychotherapists
• CYCs & Therapeutic Coaches
• Executive Function specialists
• Speech Language Pathologists
• Occupational Therapists
• Child Life Specialists
• Kickass administrators and supportive pit crew

About The Position

The human we are looking for is a seasoned, confident and playful child therapist (passionate about working with kids 4+ and their families). You might be a:

• Registered Social Worker, Psychotherapist 
• Registered Psychotherapist
• Registered Psychologist
• Child Life Specialist
• Social Service Worker with psychotherapy experience

We are also willing to consider a highly skilled, experienced Child & Youth Counsellor.

We want a human who is just as excited about getting down on the floor and playing with kids as they are about bringing in parents or siblings for a family session, or strolling down to Timmy's for a walk-and-talk with a teen. Someone who sees children as inseparable from their family units and is confident in supporting the family system, as opposed to just one individual member.

The typical full-time caseload for a 40hr week is 25 client-facing hours - adjusted down for supervisory duties, group facilitation, etc.  This is a salaried position - we believe in providing stable & predictable income for our team so you can do your best work.  This means your income is not affected by cancellations or lack of work.

We’ve given a range for compensation because we’re casting the net wide - the actual salary offered would be determined by your registration & certifications, your professional experience, your scope of competent practice, your lived experience (eg seniority in other careers), and your supervisory needs/capacity.  We work hard to operate under a parity model with living wages and stable employment situations for all staff members. Depending on your level of speciality and seniority in the field, you might fall above or below this range.

We will work with the right human to come up with a schedule that fits well into your life and our logistics restriction - this might look like a couple of later evenings and/or one weekend day to capture child and family availability.  Our central intake team handles all incoming client inquiries (consulting as necessary before placement) and carefully considers each individual coming through our doors, matching them mindfully with the clinician or service we feel is the best fit for their current needs.  Our fantastic admin team handles all the initial client file setup, initial bookings, payment and billing - your role is therapeutic.

The role is going to be largely focused on individual and family work with children, all the way from tinies to teens - along with their parents and caregivers.  Parenting experience and personal neurosparkliness is a bonus, as we like to match our incoming families with supporters who naturally ‘get it’ wherever we can.

We prefer full-time, but we are open to talking about part-time and contract configurations for the right human.  Our practice lends itself to full-time, all-in employment situations to maximize collaboration opportunities, but for very experienced clinicians, we are open to conversations about different kinds of employment setups.  We’re not a great spot to drop in and out of as a clinician, because of how tightly the team operates on the day-to-day.

About You

Our ideal Child Therapist is a joyful, interesting, confident and reliable registered professional who is able to perform the controlled act of psychotherapy, with at least 5 years of experience with minds of all kinds (we're hoping for some seasoned 10 year + folk but we also look at life experience and previous careers) and a great sense of humour (dry humour more than welcome!).  We believe strongly in the power of playfulness - and value the superpower of being able to make kids feel safe, seen and accepted with your affect, language and tone.

Resume highlights should hit:

• Neurodivergence experience (particularly Autism, ADHD, OCD and Anxiety)
• Excellent communication skills, resilience, and interpersonal skills - quick to build rapport with kids as well as parents and families
• Strong self-awareness and good executive function skills (either natural or acquired!)
• Knowledge, comfort and experience with a wide range of counselling techniques and approaches
• Not married to one modality - willingness to mash up various therapeutic approaches to meet the needs of each individual - we love leveraging play therapy, ACT, adapted DBT, Solutions-focused, motivational interviewing, IFS, DIR, etc.
• Bonus points for supervisory experience, passion and competence!
• Extra bonus points for niche areas of expertise (e.g., family therapy, play therapy, DIR/developmental psychology models, neurodivergence, complex mental health, separation/divorce, SA, etc.)
• The ability to transform any random set of items/space into a fun and engaging adventure/craft/story with the sheer force of your imagination

If you're our person, you LOVE working with kids all the way from elementary to high school.  You're looking for a long-term in-person position where you feel valued as a human, confident in your ability to contribute to a team, and challenged to grow and learn. You're compassionate and unshockable, sex-positive, working to stay aware of your natural biases, and you understand the importance of creating neutral space for your clients to explore their values.

You're flexible enough to meet the needs of families, which may include some afternoons/evenings and/or weekend days to accommodate client availability.

You’re quick to laugh and willing to work through conflict and challenges with humour, gentleness and positivity. You’re equally ready to try new things and toss them out if they’re not working. You're used to managing your workload autonomously and picking up new processes quickly. You're willing to learn from and consider other disciplines' perspectives and input in order to offer holistic, wraparound care to your clients. 

You can present professionally (with lots of room for fun, creative expression in your appearance as long as you're clean and covered!) and you are confident & collected when it comes to speaking with parents and families.  You can communicate clearly both verbally and in writing, and you're well-versed in documentation and the administrative demands of client work.

What We Offer

• Competitive compensation depending on both your qualifications and your experience (eg lived experience, areas of speciality, parenting or extensive professional experience)
• Flexible work set up - we work carefully and creatively to craft mutually sustainable schedules
• Access to ongoing opportunities for internal and external professional development and training
• Flexibility for Life Stuff within your team's schedule
• Free parking, free coffee, responsibility-free therapeutic pets on site
• Warm, supportive team environment
• Lots of creative freedom in your therapeutic practice
• A chance to innovate and contribute to an evolving neuro-inclusive developmental practice model

Think you’re a good fit for the position, but it might not be immediately obvious to us from your resume?  Send us a cover letter telling us why we should consider you for this role.

Check us out at: www.nowwhatsupports.ca

Application Process

• Submit your resume and cover letter - we will not look at applications without a personalised, human-generated cover letter explaining why this role, why this organisation, and why this time?
• If we see a spark in your application, we’ll invite you to a brief virtual screening call
• If you feel like a potential match after that conversation, you will be invited to an in-person interview
• Shortlisted folk will be invited to a 2nd interview with the clinical team
• We use Collage HR as our recruiting tool, so please check your junk/promotions as system-sent emails occasionally land there

We expect this hiring process to continue throughout April 2026.  We check all applications manually (we’re not using AI, a real human is reading your stuff), so we thank you in advance for your patience - and your vulnerability.

Thanks so much for taking the time to submit your application; however, we only have the capacity to reach out to those selected for an interview.