Senior Psychotherapist, Varsity Mental Health and Performance

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Posting Reason:
New Position

Job Type:
Employee

Anticipated Duration in Months (for contracts and temporary assignments):
N/A

Job Family:
Student Health and Wellness

# of Open Positions:
1

Faculty/Service - Department:
Varsity Sports High Performance Athletics

Campus:
Main Campus

Union Affiliation:
SSUO

Date Posted (YYYY/MM/DD):
2026/10/05

Applications must be received BEFORE (YYYY/MM/DD):
2026/10/16

Hours per week:
35

Salary Grade:
SSUO Grade 11

Salary Range:
$95,594.00 - $120,750.00

Position Purpose

Provide psychotherapy and mental performance support to varsity student-athletes for the duration of their University of Ottawa career. Offer tools, resources, counseling, and psychotherapy to help them develop the skills, abilities, and habits that promote their mental health and wellness while competing at the highest level of Canadian University Sport. Provide mental performance support as a certified mental performance consultant to varsity student-athletes in a primarily one-on-one environment. Work closely with members of the Integrated Support team to determine the best plan for student-athletes from a holistic approach.

In this role, your responsibilities will include

• Deliver Clinical Psychotherapy Services : Provide evidence-based psychotherapy to student-athletes across the mental health continuum, including those experiencing distress as well as those seeking to proactively maintain wellness, resilience, and balance, in order to support psychological health, sustainable performance in support of their academic, athletic and personal development.
• Deliver Mental Performance Consulting: Design and implement mental performance interventions (goal setting, focus, confidence, motivation, stress regulation) to enhance athletic performance, resilience, and consistency in training and competition environments.
• Advisory Role: Act as an advisor to the supervisor and Head Coaches to support the development of safe, supportive and psychologically healthy varsity sport environments that promote the well-being and safety of student-athletes in the daily training environments.
• Varsity Integrated Support Team (IST): Collaborate with members of the Varsity Integrated Support Team to deliver holistic, individualized care for student-athletes, and provide guidance on Safe Sport-informed best practices to ensure varsity environments, policies, and procedures are psychologically safe, inclusive, and free from maltreatment and psychological harm.
• Coach and IST Education: Assess learning needs and design, lead, and recommend training and/or psychoeducation for full-time coaches and Integrated Support Team members to ensure consistent knowledge and shared standards related to mental health, wellness, and psychological safety. Coordinate and deliver onboarding and ongoing education opportunities for new sport leaders within the sector to promote informed, safe, and supportive sport environments.
• Collection and Analysis of Mental Health Information: Collect and analyze aggregate mental health data, including urgency and frequency of interventions and environmental factors impacting student-athlete well-being, to inform service planning and delivery. Share nonconfidential insights with Integrated Support Team members to provide continuous improvement of supports, and flag emerging or concerning trends to the supervisor, in accordance with consent and privacy requirements.

What you will bring

• Be a certified member in good standing with the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO).
• Be a Certified Mental Performance Consultant (CMPC) in good standing as per the Canadian Sport Psychology Association.
• Postgraduate degree in counseling, psychology, or another related discipline.
• Bilingualism: French and English (spoken and written), to be considered for this position, candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.
• Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) or equivalent.
• Five (5) years of experience in a similar role.
• Knowledge of mental health issues in post-secondary environments.
• Experience working in university sport or equivalent.
• Skills in offering various modalities of psychotherapy founded on evidence-based practices.
• Knowledge and experience in the use and interpretation of the latest psychometric tools.
• Eligibility for professional liability insurance coverage as an independent practitioner.
• Strong interpersonal, communication, and customer service skills.
• Awareness of confidentiality, informed consent, accessibility and diversity-related concerns.
• Experience in developing and facilitating psychoeducational workshops.
• Knowledge and experience with computer systems and software such as Windows, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, the internet, and email.
• Ability to work evenings and weekends as needed.
• Lived experience as a member of an equity-deserving or underrepresented community is considered an asset and supports culturally responsive, inclusive, and psychologically safe engagement with a diverse student-athlete population.

Key Competencies at uOttawa:
Here are the required competencies for all or our employees at uOttawa:

Planning: Organize in time a series of actions or events in order to realize an objective or a project. Plan and organize own work and priorities in regular daily activities.
Initiative: Demonstrate creativity and initiative to suggest improvements and encourage positive results. Is proactive and self-starting. Show availability and willingness to go above and beyond whenever it is possible.
Client Service Orientation: Help or serve others to meet their needs. This implies anticipating and identifying the needs of internal and external clients and finding solutions on how to meet them.
Teamwork and Cooperation: Cooperate and work well with other members of the team to reach common goal(s). Accept and give constructive feedback. Able to adjust own behaviour to reach the goals of the team.

Note: if this is a union position: The hiring process will be governed by the current collective agreement related to the union affiliation noted above; you can click here to find out more.

If this is a front-line position with responsibilities to interact with students, selected candidates must be rated at the Low Advanced proficiency level or higher for both oral comprehension and reading comprehension in their second official language. The rating is determined by a proficiency test designed by the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute.

Prior to May 1, 2022, the University required all students, faculty, staff, and visitors (including contractors) to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 as defined in Policy 129 - Covid-19 Vaccination. This policy was suspended effective May 1, 2022 but may be reinstated at any point in the future depending on public health guidelines and the recommendations of experts.