Information for accredited services
BACP Accreditation schemes

Managing and maintaining your service accreditation

Maintaining your accreditation

Accreditation is awarded for five years. To retain your accreditation for the full term you must:

maintain your BACP organisational membership
pay the annual accreditation fee
comply with the Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions
continue to meet all criteria for the service accreditation scheme
submit a rolling annual review form for assessment
inform us of any proposed changes to the service or the overall organisation, before they are implemented
abide by the service accreditation terms and conditions

If you do not meet these requirements, or if we uphold a professional conduct complaint against you, we may withdraw, suspend or impose conditions upon your service accreditation.

Annual rolling review

Once your service is awarded accreditation, you will have an rolling annual review.

Your first annual review will be a video conference call with an accreditation assessor and an accreditation officer. This is a chance to see how things are going and to continue building our relationship.

For the next four annual review submissions, we’ll ask you to provide evidence that you’re meeting selected accreditation criteria for assessment. In the fifth year the review assessment will include a video conference call from the accreditation assessor as a ‘virtual’ visit.

Your accreditation will then roll-over into another five-year cycle, and we’ll ask you to evidence the original eligibility criteria in your first annual review submission.

We will email the annual review templates to you with a deadline for submission. This ensures that you only complete the correct form each year.

Diagram showing annual rolling review process

Promoting your accredited service

You must comply with our advertising policies when using your accredited service logo or status in publicity or information material.

Please see:

Promoting your membership

Advertising your accredited service (pdf 0.1MB)

Changes to an accredited service

You should contact us to discuss any significant changes that may affect your service, such as an internal restructure or merger, when you find out or are in internal consultation about them, and when they occur. You must also inform us of any changes taking place within your organisation in your annual review submission.

It's your responsibility to keep us informed so please contact us to discuss anything you are unsure about.

Adding additional services

You may be able to extend your accreditation to cover any new counselling or psychotherapy service or project. We may ask you to submit a Changes application form containing just some key criteria to evidence for assessment. We will email the form to you after we have spoken with you. Submission is free of charge.

If the new service is a distinct service with its own policies and procedures, funding and governance, it will need its own accreditation and you'll need to submit a new application in full.

If your organisation merges with another

If you’re facing a potential merger with another organisation, you may find your service accreditation needs to be reviewed. Our mergers protocol includes a flowchart to help you in your considerations.

Organisational mergers protocol (pdf 0.1MB)

Please talk to us as soon as you are aware of changes that may take place, or at the very least, when they come into force so we can discuss options and how we could support your service accreditation through the changes.