We’ll soon be sending our 2022 membership survey via email and we’d love as many of you as possible to take part. The survey results help guide our work for the year ahead and enable us to improve the support and services we offer, so that you get the best possible membership experience.

We shared the results of last year’s survey with you in October 2021, along with ways we’re looking to improve as an Association based on your feedback. You can read more about last year’s survey on our website. 

Ahead of this year’s survey, we wanted to share some of the changes we’ve made following the feedback we received from you last year.

No member fee increase this year 

Last year, 84% of you said you were likely to renew your membership without, or with little, hesitation. While we were really pleased so many of you wished to renew, we’re always looking at ways we can support you better. This year the Board took the decision not to increase membership fees for the third year running to recognise the financial challenges currently facing our members. 

Connecting you with other members

We’re also developing our Communities of Practice platform (CoPr) as only 35% of you felt you were part of a community of members. The CoPr will allow you to create dedicated communities to engage, network and share experience and best practice with like-minded peers. We’ve been working with our member volunteers to ensure the CoPr stays member-focused. Unfortunately we’ve experienced some technical delays in launching, but we’re hopeful CoPr will be ready for you to use before the end of the year.

Flexible events programme 

In last year’s survey, only 31% of you said we work well to provide forums and groups for people with similar interests to come together and network. This is an area we’d like to improve. This summer, we’re moving to a hybrid events programme and some of our events have already made the move back to in-person events. We’re hopeful that we’ll continue to make the majority of our events hybrid, so you can choose whether you’d like to attend in-person or online. Some of our dedicated network groups are also making the change back to in-person sessions too.

Looking at ways we can continue to improve

56% of you thought we were an inclusive association and while we were really pleased more than half of you thought this, we recognise there is always more to be done. Since these results were published in October we’ve continued to work on our evolving Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Strategy. We’re starting a consultation on the first draft of the strategy document and we’re seeking feedback from external stakeholders, which include our divisional executives. Following this, we aim to conduct focus groups with the wider BACP membership for a broader, inclusive review as the strategy develops. We’ll keep you updated on this work as it progresses.

We’re continually working to promote opportunities for paid employment for our members to our stakeholders and policy makers. In last year’s survey, only 25% of you agreed that we did this well, it’s a key area for us and something we want to improve upon so we can support and represent you better. We’re actively working with stakeholders and policy makers on these issues and recently collaborated with The Awareness Centre (TAC). The collaboration helps to support the work TAC are doing providing counselling in schools while promoting paid job opportunities for our members via our member-only jobs board.

In addition, members are also able to make use of free TAC membership until Thursday 1 September 2022 to gain access to any paid job opportunities that aren’t advertised on our member-only jobs board.  

Share your views with us 

Please look out for the 2022 membership survey on Monday 6 June and take the time to share your views with us. Your valuable feedback helps us to continually improve as your Association and ensure that we’re able to better support you as you change lives through counselling.