At Conestoga College in Kitchener, Canada, PGCert in Mental Health, Addiction, and Substance Use is offered as a postgraduate certificate in Clinical Psychology programme. The programme runs for 1 year, delivered on campus. Teaching is in English. Tuition for international students is CAD 16,809 per year (CAD 5,107 per year for local students).
This one-year graduate certificate program equips students with skills and knowledge to support people living with mental health and substance-use concerns. Coursework addresses the broad influence mental health and addiction can have on individuals, families and communities, aiming to build a wide range of evidence-based skills applicable both to individual clients and to group or systems-level work. Students learn through a mix of group and individual study, working on applied projects designed to benefit the community in which they are learning. Topics covered include community collaboration, program development, trauma-informed care and advocacy, giving graduates grounding in both direct client support and broader program- and community-level work. As a post-graduate credential, the program is intended for students who already hold a diploma or degree and want focused, applied preparation for roles in the mental health and addictions field, ranging from front-line support positions to community and program development work. It is also framed as useful preparation for students who intend to pursue further clinical graduate study in a related field. The program suits career changers or recent graduates seeking practical, applied training rather than a broad general social-services credential.
Requirements
Admission Requirements: Conestoga's Mental Health, Addiction, and Substance Use postgraduate certificate requires a bachelor's degree, advanced diploma, diploma, or equivalent, in a community-focused, liberal-arts or health-related field from an accredited college or university, or an acceptable combination of at least five years of related work and personal experience. Canadian citizens and permanent residents with non-Canadian transcripts must obtain a course-by-course credential evaluation through an approved provider such as ICAS or WES, and applicants whose prior education was not delivered in English must demonstrate proficiency under Conestoga's general language-requirements policy; the program's own admissions page does not publish an IELTS, TOEFL, PTE, Duolingo or CAEL score table. Final acceptance follows Conestoga's review of the submitted credentials as a whole rather than a stated minimum grade average. No portfolio, interview, or standardized test is separately listed as a requirement.
Application Details
Start Date:September and January
Application Deadline:Domestic applicants apply through ontariocolleges.ca (college code CONS): for the Fall 2027 intake the online application opens 26 September 2026, the equal consideration date is 1 February 2027, offers may be issued from 1 November 2026, and accepted offers must be confirmed by 1 May 2027; most oversubscribed programs stop accepting applications after 1 February 2027, though many programs remain open afterward. Conestoga does not publish a separate equal-consideration date for its January intake. International applicants apply directly to Conestoga and are assessed on a rolling, first-come, first-served basis until each program fills; no fixed international closing date is published. These are institution-wide dates; this programme publishes no deadline of its own.
