Calgary Centre For Counselling Research
We rely on thorough research and solid data to provide world-class counselling. Our in-house team of experts research best practices in counselling so we can always provide meet the needs of the people we serve. We are recognized as a Centre of Excellence in research in the counselling and human services industry.
Our use of Feedback Informed Treatment (FIT) sets us apart and gives us reliable information on outcome measurement that achieves a number of important goals: it helps our clients achieve results, helps us develop more effective programs and helps improve counsellor practice.
We are a leader in North America in the development of domestic abuse prevention and programs. We have research initiatives in areas such as male victims of abuse, eating disorders, self-esteem, depression and the effects of divorce on children.
What We’ve Accomplished
We have been improving lives for over 60 years and our session-by-session measurements have been in place since 2004 . We have been visionaries and pioneers in our field. Our deep-rooted focus on practice-based evidence research has improved results for our clients.
In 2023, 50.4% of clients improved or recovered based on the OQ 45 (the outcome measure). The benchmark for improvement and recovery is 35%. Significantly better results have been experienced by Calgary Counselling Centre clients, with our results outperforming published benchmarks by 40%.
Research Collaborators and Projects
We collaborate with many educational institutions and community organizations to expand our research potential and encourage thriving collaborations:
RESOLVE Alberta, a tri-prairie research network that coordinates and supports research aimed at ending Domestic Abuse
University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work
International Centre of Clinical Excellence (ICCE)(Chicago)
University of Calgary Mathison Centre for Mental Health Education & Research
University of Wisconsin
Project examples:
Characteristics of Single Session Clients
Counselling Follow-up: Do people maintain their changes over time
National Depression Screening Day
Trauma Informed Research & Training
Student project examples:
Mental Health of Male Perpetrators of Intimate Partner Violence
Effectiveness of Couples Counselling
Relationship between Client Characteristics, Outcomes, & Satisfaction
Student opportunities
Join our team of outstanding researchers. We always have opportunities for student projects — undergraduate and graduate practicum placements for students in Social Work, Psychology and Community Health Sciences. We also accept volunteers looking for research experience. Contact us.
Academic Publications
Gurm, K., Wampold, B. E., Piatt, C., Jagodzinski R., Caperton, D. D., & Babins-Wagner R. (2023). Effectiveness of telemental health during COVID-19 pandemic: A propensity score noninferiority analysis of outcomes. Psychotherapy, 60(2), 231–236. doi: 10.1037/pst0000472
Kuo, P. B., Tanana, M. J, Goldberg, S. B, Caperton, D. D., Narayanan, S, Atkins, D. C., & Imel, Z. E. (2023). Machine-learning-based prediction of client distress from session recordings. Clinical Psychological Science. doi: 10.1177/21677026231172694
Goldberg, S., B. Babins-Wagner, R., Imel, Z. E., Caperton, D. D., Weitzman, L., & Wampold, B. E. (2023). Threat alert: The effect of outliers on the alliance-outcome correlation. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 70, 81-89. doi: 10.1037/cou0000638.
Mehta, M., Caperton, D. D., Axford, K., Weitzman, L., Atkins, D. C., Srikumar, V., & Imel., Z. E. (2022). Psychotherapy is not one thing: Simultaneous modeling of different therapeutic approaches. Proceedings of the Eighth Workshop on Computational Linguistics and Clinical Psychology. doi: 10.18653/v1/2022.clpsych-1.5
Flemotomos, N., Martinez, V. R., Chen, Z., Singla, K., Ardulov, V., Peri, R., Caperton, D. D., Gibson, J, Tanana, M. J., Georgiou, P., Van Epps, J., Lord, S. P., Hirsch, T., Imel, Z. E., Atkins, D. C., & Narayanan, S. (2022). Automated evaluation of psychotherapy skills using speech and language technologies. Behavior Research Methods, 54, 690–711 (2022). doi: 10.3758/s13428-021-01623-4
Bender, A., Babins-Wagner, R., & Laughton, A. (2021). 761 Associations between depression and guidelines met for physical activity and sufficient sleep in an international sample. Sleep, 44, A296-A297.
Quirk, K., Owen, J., Reese, R. J., Babins‐Wagner, R., & Berzins, S. (2020). Benchmarking community‐based couple therapy: Considering measurement reactivity. Family process, 59(4), 1423-1433.
Tutty, L. M., Babins-Wagner, R., & Rothery, M. A. (2020). The responsible choices for men IPV offender program: Outcomes and a comparison of court-mandated to non-court-mandated men. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 29(3), 292-313.
Breault, L. J., Rittenbach, K., Hartle, K., Babins-Wagner, R., de Beaudrap, C., Jasaui, Y., ... & Mason-Lai, P. (2018). People with lived experience (PWLE) of depression: describing and reflecting on an explicit patient engagement process within depression research priority setting in Alberta, Canada. Research involvement and engagement, 4, 1-10.
Breault, L. J., Rittenbach, K., Hartle, K., Babins-Wagner, R., de Beaudrap, C., Jasaui, Y., ... & Mason-Lai, P. (2018). The top research questions asked by people with lived depression experience in Alberta: a survey. Canadian Medical Association Open Access Journal, 6(3), E398-E405.
Berzins, S., Babins‐Wagner, R., & Hyland, K. (2018). Relationship of employment status and socio‐economic factors with distress levels and counselling outcomes during a recession. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 18(2), 122-132.
Babins-Wagner, R. (2017). Feedback-Informed Treatment in agency and clinic settings. In D. S. Prescott, C. L. Maeschalk, & S. D. Miller (Eds.), Feedback-informed treatment in clinical practice: Reaching for excellence (pp. 167–186). American Psychological Association. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1chs647.12
Goldberg, S. B., Babins-Wagner, R., Rousmaniere, T., Berzins, S., Hoyt, W. T., Whipple, J. L., ... & Wampold, B. E. (2016). Creating a climate for therapist improvement: A case study of an agency focused on outcomes and deliberate practice. Psychotherapy, 53(3), 367.
Rousmaniere, T. G., Swift, J. K., Babins-Wagner, R., Whipple, J. L., & Berzins, S. (2016). Supervisor variance in psychotherapy outcome in routine practice. Psychotherapy Research, 26(2), 196-205.
Tutty, L. M., & Babins-Wagner, R. (2016) Strengthening Families: A pilot couples program for intimate partner violence and substance abuse. In T. Augusta-Scott, K. Scott, & L. Tutty (Eds.), Innovations in interventions to address intimate partner violence: Research and practice. New York, NY: Routledge.
Tutty, L., Babins-Wagner, R., & Rothery, M (2015). You’re not alone: Mental health outcomes in therapy groups of abused women. Journal of Family Violence. 31(4), 489-49.
Recent Presentations & Conference Papers
Gurm, K., Wampold, B. E., Piatt, C., Jagodzinski R., Caperton, D. D., & Babins-Wagner R. (2023). Effectiveness of telemental health during COVID-19 pandemic: A propensity score noninferiority analysis of outcomes. Presented at Calgary’s Mental Health and Addiction Strategy Forum. Calgary, AB.
Imel, Z. E., Kuo, P. B., Tanana, M., Goldberg, S. B., Caperton, D. D., & Atkins, D. C. (2023). Prediction of distress in psychotherapy from prior session conversation. Paper presented at the 54th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dublin, Ireland.
Babins-Wagner, R. & Caperton, D. D. (2023). Implementation and effectiveness of three supervision models in a community mental health setting. Paper presented at the 54th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dublin, Ireland.
Babins-Wagner, R., Wampold, B. E., Ellis, M. V., Keough, C., & Caperton, D. D. (2023). Innovating clinical supervision in naturalistic settings: Three models implemented and compared. Panel presented at the 54th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dublin, Ireland.
Keough, C. (2023). Routine outcome measurement supervision: A feedback informed supervision framework. Paper presented at the 54th International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Dublin, Ireland.
Ng, C. W., Axford, K. E., Caperton, D. D., Weitzman, L., Atkins, D. C., & Imel, Z. E. (2022). Tracking feminist-multicultural interventions: Development of a counseling process measure. Paper presented at the 53rd International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Denver, CO.
Mehta, M., Caperton, D. D., Axford, K. E., Weitzman, L., Imel, Z. E., Srikumar, V., & Atkins, D. C. (2022). Classifying utterance-level psychotherapy interventions using transformers. Paper presented at the 53rd International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Denver, CO.
Axford, K. E., Caperton, D. D., Weitzman, L., Atkins, D. C., & Imel, Z. E. (2022). Do I do what I say or just do what I do: Agreement of therapist skill use with self-reported theoretical orientation. Paper presented at the 53rd International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Denver, CO.
Caperton, D. D., Weitzman, L., Atkins, D. C., & Imel, Z. E. (2022). Development and psychometric properties of a multitheoretical, statement-level measure of psychotherapy interventions. Paper presented at the 53rd International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Denver, CO.
Babins-Wagner, R. Laughton, A., & Caperton, D. D. (2022). The mental health effects of the pandemic on children and youth. Paper presented at the 53rd International Annual Meeting of the Society for Psychotherapy Research. Denver, CO.
Babins-Wagner, R., Caperton, D. D., Ellis, M. V., Keough, C., Miksha, E., & Wampold, B. E. (2022). Initial Lessons from a randomized controlled trial of supervision models in a naturalistic setting: Skill-based vs. competency-based vs. routine outcomes measurement. Paper presented at the 16th International Interdisciplinary Conference on Clinical Supervision, School of Social Work, Catholic University, Washington, DC.