10/21/2025
Dear Friends and Followers of Gentle Path Counselling Services,
As President of Gentle Path’s Board, I am honoured to share two items of new with you, regarding the leadership of our twenty-seven year-old agency –and movement for greater accessible and affordable mental health services in our region.
First, I announce that our Executive Director, Trish Hamilton, has stepped down from Gentle Path, to take up a new opportunity with the Saint Joseph’s Hospital Foundation. In the four years of her leadership, Trish led Gentle Path to be blessed with new branding, and an excellent new facility at Linden Place on Chesley Drive. Both of these were challenging transitions, but she led our counsellors, staff and volunteers to welcome and enjoy these vital updates to our agency.
Trish applied her expertise in marketing and fundraising well. When we compare the fiscal year just passed to the year before she joined us (2018-2019), we can celebrate that our support from donations and net fund-raising proceeds went up by an astounding 177%! Our reception of grants from charitable foundations, to cover the cost of our subsidized services for clients, also rose by an encouraging 144%. Under her leadership, Gentle Path has won a total of eight “Community Votes Saint John” Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze awards during the last three years in the categories of Non-Profits, Counselling, Therapy and Weight Loss and Nutrition.
All of us at Gentle Path, with pride and gratitude, congratulate Trish for her outstanding and caring leadership, and we wish her success and joy in her new position with St. Joseph’s.
It speaks well of someone’s work when it takes a committee to replace them! We are pleased to announce a new three-person leadership team, to continue to guide Gentle Path into ever more accessible and effective ways of providing professional counselling and other mental health programs to the public, without regard to their means to afford the same.
All three of our new executive leadership are counsellors themselves. They will continue to provide counselling, as well as take on administrative duties. We are pleased to announce that Lisa Johnson (LCT), who has been our Clinical Supervisor, is our new Executive Director. We are also pleased to welcome another two counselling therapist’s who will serve as part of her team. Gillian Dobson (LCT-C), who spearheaded last summer’s very successful Golf Tournament, will be our new Director of Development & Fund-Raising. Katie Boucher (LCT-C), who has already devoted many volunteer hours to Gentle Path in addition to her therapeutic work, will be our new Director of Marketing & Strategy.
We are very happy to appoint these three Counselling Therapist’s to be our new leadership team. While we are thrilled to have expanded our charitable income under Trish’s enthusiasm, the Board of Directors is convinced that our future growth will depend on expanding our “social enterprise” income through our therapeutic services. We do not intend to raise our economical prices, and we continue to grow our provision of accessible, timely and partially or fully subsidized counselling to those unable to afford or access the same. Those who can pay, or are covered by insurance or Employee Assistance Programs, may be assured that all net profits from that side of our services will continue go toward that end.
Thank you to you all for your support! And our special congratulations and thanks to Trish, Lisa, Gillian and Katie!
--(Rev. Dr.) Chris McMullen, President, Gentle Path Counselling.
