News

BACP Refuses to Reveal any Details About Review of their Governance

April 4, 2023April 4, 2023 by admin Comment Closed

The British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has refused to answer basic questions about a recent review into the governance of the organisation, after a request for information was made by Partners for Counselling and Psychotherapy (PCP). BACP cited the absence of “legal obligation” and a “feeling” that answering our questions “would be inappropriate”. Our interaction with BACP over this matter began in November 2022, when we released a statement of concern, which was published on our website and sent to BACP. In our statement, we asked for, among other things: “The commissioning of a formal and independent Governance Review of the BACP Board”. BACP’s response to us was delayed, for reasons which are unclear. On the 22nd December we received a response which included the following statement: “Following the resignation of the trustees, a formal and independent review of the governance of BACP was commissioned. The review, conducted by an expert in governance, led to a series of recommendations being made...

BACP Statement of Concern

November 11, 2022November 11, 2022 by admin Comment Closed

Dear BACP Board of Directors We are writing to express our concern at the sustained period of turbulence within the BACP, culminating in the recent resignation of both the CEO and the Deputy CEO. There has been growing concern about the direction that the BACP has been taking within the profession. In particular this relates to the following: Changes to the resolution policy. These changes occurred in 2018 to counter members becoming more active and resulted in it being almost impossible for members to pass a successful resolution, thus quashing the expression of legitimate concerns. This has a direct and immediate impact on members' say in the future direction of the organisation, and raises important questions about transparency and governance within the BACP. Resignations. In recent months, four members of the board have resigned, but BACP members were not provided with timely or substantive explanations regarding these resignations, or the governance response of the BACP. The reasons for significant turnover of board members remain unaddressed,...

Therapists Against the Work Cure

October 13, 2022October 13, 2022 by admin Comment Closed

Statement from Partners for Counselling & Psychotherapy (PCP), 13th October 2022.On Monday 10th October 2022, World Mental Health Day, the Government announced £122 million of funding for mental health. But the bitter reality is that this money is not being spent on in-patient beds, community mental health initiatives or trained counsellors and psychotherapists for public mental health services. Instead the Government is using this money to recruit and train 700 ‘employment advisers’ to work alongside therapists in the NHS’s flagship Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) programme. This will help drive the highly contested policy of ‘welfare conditionality’ that threatens benefits claimants with sanctions if they don’t conform to certain patterns of behaviour, a policy which targets the poorest and most deserving sections of our society at a time when they need the greatest help. Despite the timing of the press release, the money announced is not being used to build mental health support. Instead it is an expansion of an...

PCP Response to January 2022 Iteration of the SCoPEd Framework

February 2, 2022February 2, 2022 by admin Comment Closed

Locked Gateways - The Final Iteration of SCoPEd The final iteration of SCoPEd is here and it is every bit as rigid, self-defeating and objectionable as expected. One would be forgiven, in fact, for mistaking it for any of the previous iterations, as very little of significance has changed. The requirement of “450 client hours during training” for column C is still there. This essentially permanently gatekeeps almost all BACP/NCS members who have not completed UKCP and BPC training out of column C. We are not aware of any BACP or NCS accredited training which has such a client hour requirement, and the vast majority certainly do not. When we consider that the BACP were, as recently as last year, implying that post-qualification experience would be enough for a BACP accredited member with a Masters to become a column C therapist (see image A) we can clearly see the futility of multiple consultations with members based on (at best) ambiguous information...

New Open Letter from the Person-Centred Community asks BACP to Halt SCoPEd and Open an Inclusive Dialogue

October 16, 2020October 16, 2020 by adminNo Comments

Therapists and organisations from across the person-centred community and beyond have come together to sign an open letter asking BACP to halt the SCoPEd project and re-engage with the profession as a whole as we consider the future of counselling and psychotherapy. PCP is in full support of the letter, which has been signed by a number of our partner organisations, and led by members of the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy and The Person-Centred Association. The letter and full list of signatories, originally published on the Alliance website here, can be read below: SCoPEd: Insufficient and Incongruent An open letter to BACP As Person-Centred therapists and supporters of the Person-Centred Approach, we have become increasingly concerned about the development of the SCoPEd project for counselling and psychotherapy. Person-Centred Therapy (PCT) constitutes one of the most widely practised approaches within BACP and yet SCoPEd has marginalised and excluded Person-Centred therapists almost entirely. After the first consultation, we were assured that PCT – an...

NCS to Leave the Partnership

October 14, 2020October 14, 2020 by adminNo Comments

he PCP and NCS have come to a mutual and amicable decision for the NCS to leave the partnership at this time. NCS are currently in a process of exploring options for involvement with the SCoPEd project, in an effort to meet the needs and wishes of their members. NCS members will be given a final say on what NCS’s involvement will be. The foundation of our partnership is based upon the shared purpose of protecting the profession from restrictive standardisation, and a fundamental part of this work is our collective opposition to the SCoPEd project. The NCS leaving the partnership will allow NCS to work within the new SCoPEd Group in good faith, and will also allow the PCP to follow its guiding principles and hold professional associations to account. The NCS will remain an ally of PCP, maintaining mutual respect and the desire to work with each other across a range of issues in the future. ...

PCP SCoPEd Update – July 2020

July 20, 2020July 20, 2020 by admin12 Comments

The second iteration of SCoPEd has arrived. Over the last week, representatives of our partnership organisations have studied the document and its accompanying methodology paper (both can be found here). Our partnership is agreed that the SCoPEd project remains an elitist, politically motivated misrepresentation of our profession. Our concerns focus on a number of areas: a) Consultation: No consultation with members or the wider profession took place when the research was proposed. From the outset, this project has been controlled and run by BPC, UKCP and BACP. The ‘independent chair’ is a member of BPC. The impact of any subsequent consultation cannot influence the research processes and therefore is necessarily very limited. Additionally, the focus of the member consultation was very limited, and the new iteration shows that little has changed as a result of member views. b) Methodology: The Roth and Pilling methodology chosen to conduct the research is very problematic for...

Pink Therapy and Aashna Join PCP

April 6, 2020April 6, 2020 by adminNo Comments

Partners for Counselling and Psychotherapy are delighted to welcome Pink Therapy and Aashna to our broad front of organisations, as we continue to work together to support diverse practice and present a strong and united challenge to the homogenisation of the profession. Pink Therapy: Pink Therapy was set up 21 years ago by Dominic Davies and is a large independent and virtual therapy and training organisation focussed around improving the mental health and quality of therapy available to gender, sex and relationship diverse (GSRD) clients. GSRD is our preferred term to expand beyond LGBTQ as it embraces people who are Asexual, involved in BDSM/Kink, or who have consensual non-monogamous relationships. All groups that might have a challenging accessing mainstream counselling and sexological/relationship therapy organisations.We run an international training programme (largely delivered online), have an active Facebook private group for therapists (https://www.facebook.com/groups/143121662383294/) and have been active in the Coalition Working Group against Conversion Therapy since it's inception. We run an annual conference,...

Open Letter to BACP, UKCP and BPC – SCoPEd and the Covid-19 Crisis 23/03/2020

March 23, 2020March 23, 2020 by adminNo Comments

Dear BACP, UKCP and BPC, As you are aware, there has been a huge impact on our profession of COVID-19 which is likely to last for a very long time. Many counsellors and psychotherapists are now at real risk for their livelihoods. Many others ore overwhelmed with additional work. In addition, all are facing unprecedented pressures on their family relationships, mental health and wellbeing. There are huge and complex issues about practice, training and placements moving online, which are likely to be seismically profession-changing on a permanent basis. You have admitted that SCoPEd has been very poorly received by thousands of professionals and many organisations. While no doubt well intentioned, the fact that SCoPEd is now undergoing lengthy reiterations and is in the phase of damage limitation should give you the greatest pause for thought even in normal times. These, however, are anything but normal times. Our profession has no appetite now for fundamental and widely opposed restructurings of standards and...

Open Letter to the Professional Standards Authority from PCP 22/03/2020

March 22, 2020March 22, 2020 by adminNo Comments

Dear Christine Braithwaite, This e-mail (which is an open letter and will be published on our website) comes to you from Partners in Counselling and Psychotherapy (PCP). We are a broad front of organisations that are deeply concerned about current directions of travel in accreditation and regulation. Although newly constituted, you will already know some of our member organisations, such as the National Counselling Society, Counsellors Together UK, the Psychotherapy and Counselling Union, the Alliance for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and the Black, African and Asian Therapy Network. Our various memberships exceed 19,000 practitioners, most of whom are on PSA ARs. This is our website: https://www.partnersforcounsellingandpsychotherapy.co.uk/ We seek a meeting with you, using on-line or conference call methods. Our group would have three people in it. Here is a list of some of the things we would like to explore: (1) How we and the PSA can work better together to promote and protect the PSA’s regulatory approach so as to stem the tide of accusations...