Individual accreditation has been in the spotlight recently. We believe individual accreditation is an opportunity for members who want to demonstrate to clients and employers that they’ve achieved high standards of knowledge, experience and development in counselling and psychotherapy.
It is of course not the only option for members, and you will each have different factors influencing your choice of whether to apply for accreditation. We have been following the accreditation debate with great interest and want to respond to the challenges you’ve set for us.
We want to work with you to understand your views as we begin the review of all our accreditation processes - individual, course and service. We want to listen to your thoughts and suggestions about how to take this work forward as well as reviewing the accessibility and process issues. We are already looking at improving, streamlining and offering better support for those who choose to apply using existing schemes, but we want to do more. You will hear more from us over the next few months about the different aspects of accreditation and we will be inviting your views over the next year as we continue to review.
We want to ensure that we are putting you, our members, at the heart of what we do. We are aware of the struggles over employment and volunteering and we want to face these, listen to you and move the profession forward so that every BACP counsellor and psychotherapist receives the recognition they so deserve.
We feel individual accreditation should be recognised by employers and the public, and we know that having an accreditation scheme has been recognised as an important standard. However, we don’t think paid employment should be dependent on individual accreditation, which is why, in our lobbying to Government, and work with NHS employers and in our public engagement work, we promote being on the BACP Register as the kitemark of a trained, qualified counselling professional.
We understand that working towards accreditation, even though challenging, is rewarding, and our passionate and dedicated team at BACP is here to help advise you if you decide it is the right option for you.