Influencing decision makers
Our policy and public affairs work

Influencing decision makers is crucial to achieving our aims of improving public protection, expanding the choice of evidence-based therapies, increasing the availability of services, reducing waiting times and raising awareness of the valuable skills counsellors and psychotherapists can bring to a workforce.

We also produce a range of briefings and reports which draw together robust evidence, set out our position and make recommendations for improving psychological therapy services.

We campaign to inform members, the public, politicians and the media about the positive impact counselling can have on people’s lives, and to influence national and local policy decisions. We aim to use our collective voice to make a real change in improving public protection, expanding the choice of evidence-based psychological therapies, increasing the availability of services and reducing waiting times.

To improve mental health policy at a national and local level we identify, engage and work with relevant politicians and decision makers representing all four UK nations. We support and help decision makers to understand the positive changes that counselling can have on people's lives. We also challenge any misinformed assumptions and beliefs about mental health and the counselling professions.

Political briefings are one of our keys tools for improving decision makers' knowledge and understanding of mental health and the counselling professions. Used ahead of debates, committee hearings and general legislative scrutiny, they are focused in informing politicians of our views on very specific topics.

While our political briefings are aimed specifically at a political audience, our policy briefings are focused on informing the key decisions about mental health and psychological therapies taken by all decision makers.

We bring together our expertise, the research evidence and our policy recommendations in a short, digestible format that both informs and challenges discussions and thinking around mental health, psychological therapies and the counselling professions.

Representing our most comprehensive and complete thinking on our strategic priorities, our policy reports make evidence based recommendations and calls to action that demonstrate the important role counselling and psychotherapy can play in tackling some of the challenges facing our society and improving the mental health of the public.

We contribute to consultations and inquiries from organisations such as national governments, parliaments and assemblies and non-governmental policy development agencies. Using written submissions and oral presentations, we ensure that the most robust evidence for psychological therapies is available to decision makers when they're shaping mental health policy.

Copies of our consultation and inquiry responses are available on request.

For more information, please contact publicaffairs@bacp.co.uk