VANCOUVER -- A new program is connecting B.C. health-care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic with counsellors offering free therapy sessions.

The program offers front-line workers up to three free therapy sessions over the phone or by video chat from registered counsellors and psychotherapists across B.C. It's co-founded by Dr. Corrinne Allyson, a Victoria-based counsellor, and Ross Dunn, an online marketing professional, , who both put in hundreds of volunteer hours getting the initiative up and running.

"This was our way of being able to offer help," said Allyson.

In addition to health-care workers dealing with extremely stressful situations at their jobs, Allyson said, they also worry about bringing the virus home to their families.

"They're worried about infecting their kids and their loved ones. So they're under a phenomenal amount of stress," she said. "That causes the nervous system to ramp-up so that they're running on a lot of adrenaline, a lot of cortisol is rushing through their systems and so on. And that can be fine in the short-term, but when it goes on as long as this is going on, it starts to have an effect on people's sense of well-being, on their ability to cope."

Allysson says she was inspired to start the program after hearing about a similar initiative in Ontario. She thinks there will be a need for it well into the future as the pandemic's toll on our mental health becomes more evident.

"I'm also very worried about when things wind down because that's often when the trauma starts to reveal itself," she said.

Allyson notes that the public's attention has been focused lately on the province gradually reopening, which she says shows our desire for things to go back to normal.

"We've all lost something," she said. "Whether it's a way of life, whether it's a job…There's a grief that's permeating our culture right now. And I think this focus on reopening is people trying to avoid looking at what it is we've really lost and how difficult this adjustment is going to be. I think the mental health consequences are going to reverberate for a very long time—not just with the health-care professionals."

"We offer compassionate listening and concrete tools as an expression of our gratitude to you, the people facing physical, emotional and spiritual vulnerability," a statement on the organization's website says. "Begin here and we will connect you with volunteer therapists willing to help."

Those interested in receiving counselling must be health-care workers who have been impacted by COVID-19 in their workplace. This includes doctors, nurses, ambulance attendants, orderlies, medical lab technicians or community health workers.

"Your workplace could be a hospital, the street, a private home if you conduct home visits, a nursing home, a long-term care facility, a group living facility for the developmentally challenged, a homeless shelter, or any other place that could be described as a care facility," according to the organization's website.

Prospective clients need to register online and will be contacted 24 to 48 hours later with the names and contact information for three different therapists who have volunteered their services. The clients can then choose which therapist they want to work with.

Counsellors, psychologists and social workers who wish to volunteer their services can also register on the COVID-19 Therapy website. Organizers verify the therapists' credentials, and once confirmed, make their contact information available to prospective clients.

As of Monday, more than 130 therapists have signed up to provide pro bono counselling sessions through the site.

Allyson says some of the therapists who've volunteered also speak other languages, including Hungarian, Spanish, French, Italian, Persian, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Dutch, so those seeking care could potentially receive counselling in a language other than English.