Counselor Forums or Counseling advice

[sealover]

Hi does anyone know of any counselor forums in the uk or more local devon?

My partner who is a long time sufferer of panic attacts due to drug misuse has over the last 10 years turned her life around and got her HNC counselor qualifications. (Scottish HNC level 3 or 4 in England)

thing is shes just found out she now has to do 150-400 hours of supervised counselling and these cost £40 odd per 12 client hours and we cant afford it

she is trying to find some sort of funding or a volunteers job counselling but wanted the hours to be supervised and we have no idea where to start looking.

its a real shame as she's worked really hard to get this far and now to find that she cant get accredited until she has done so many supervised client hours.

in fact any help or advice would be cool :)

[swgrl09]

I know how you feel!! It's a little different here probably, but I got my masters degree in therapy and graduated, however still need to complete 1000 work hours and 100 supervision hours to be licensed. Most employers want you already licensed. I got lucky and found work where my supervisor had the same degree and is providing my supervision as part of the job.

Is there an overarching agency that certifies her that could give her some information on local places? I reached out to several professors as well who had connections in the work force. There were Facebook networking groups for professionals as well that would post openings. Maybe she could look into that?

I wish I could be of more help, but it's hard when different countries do things differently. Just wanted to empathize. It's very frustrating when you work so hard for the training and still have to do more.. And expensive!!

[sealover]

Thanks could check FB see what comes up nothing to lose :)

yes different countries do things differently which is bit dumb I think as Scotland is part of the UK but so different with the rules and regs its the BACP British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy over here that deals with most of it it seems she is going to ring them to see if some of her collage hours will count as hours as they do in Scotland but were not sure yet about here in England.

thing is I'm disabled and she's only a volunteer so we just don't have much cash between us so unless we find funding or help shes never going to finish it all and get a good job from her training. you would think the Government would sort some funding out as after it we both would be off benefits for life

[swgrl09]

Yeah, that's a good place to start - contacting the BACP. It's definitely hard with financing all of this. The only help in the USA is ridiculous student loans, which I will be paying back until I die. You'd think they would figure this out somewhere by now.

Good luck to your partner :hugs:

[MyNameIsTerry]

It's 450 for the BACP with at least 1.5 hours supervised cover per month as a minimum. They also seem to insist on a student placement element and 3 years in practice.

The thing to remember is, the BACP is only a self regulatory body and the current Bill of Parliament is looking towards the HCPC to take up formal regulation. So, perhaps also try to find out what they could be like in a couple of years...which the BACP should be able to advise on as it affects all their registered people.

You could try the larger charities such as MIND or Rethink as they provide services all over the place. Their networks are made up of partners so perhaps you can find a local branch and obtain the hours through that and then any supervision would be by them I would have thought.

My CBT therapist who provided Level 3 High Intensity Therapy was a referral from my GP. This was all NHS and she told they were a local charity receiving funding and attached to Rethink in someway. I checked and couldn't find her on the BACP register so I suspect she had joined them under supervision until she could be accredited later.

What you also want to check is that the BACP recognise the training. They are quite particular about using accredited training centres. However, they might be willing to assess the qualification to determine if it maps to their criteria. The thing is though, the 2nd course they accredit includes (if I recall rightly) 100 hours placement with clients. So, if you have been practicing they may still have the same issue if its not been supervised so I guess what might then be needed is to reach those 100 hours first to pass the qualifications equivalent if they accept that the HNC maps to their criteria.

They list all of this on their website here http://www.bacp.co.uk/accreditation/

According to MIND, some private counsellors & therapists offer a 'sliding scale' of fees based on level of income. I wonder if you can find some that are willing to do that for the supervised hours?

There are other associations as well e.g. BABCP, UKPC, etc.

All the best with it. I hope it works out. My therapist was a former sufferer as I later gathered and it did help to build a relationship.

[sealover]

thanks guys some really useful info there and at lest some leads to try I will look into them and let you know how I get on :)

[Rennie1989]

I am currently on the level 3 counselling course and am unsure how I will do the level 4 purely because of the number of hours the BACP want us to gain, all whilst I work in my current job to keep us sheltered and fed!

Here is what the BACP says regarding accreditation:
"This is for individual counsellors and psychotherapists who have successfully completed 450 hours of professional counselling/psychotherapy training with an integral student placement element, have been in practice for at least three years, and have accumulated a minimum of 450 hours of practice covered by at least 1.5 hours of supervision per month" http://www.bacp.co.uk/accreditation/

I'm not sure why she thought that she needed 400 hours at most of supervised counselling, that is very excessive. I would advice her to look at the BACP website and call them if she has any further questions. If she is currently going to supervised sessions then she should ask her supervisor about this issue too.

[MyNameIsTerry]

Is there any guidance being issued about the current Bill of Parliament and what that will do to all these self regulatory bodies, Rennie? The BACP seem to have a close relationship with the NHS but they will be overtaken by the HCPC who legally protect their portfolio of job titles.

There are others sectors that have both regulatory and self regulatory bodies such as utilities, however in their case its worthless as its a combination of representatives of each business but the energy sector has always had bodies like that and ultimately, they are pretty toothless and overarching regulation keeps them inline

I find myself wondering whether the HCPC role will be very hands off and to sit and wait for any complaints to roll in whilst letting the others bodies do everything but many of them are connected to training colleges hence are biased. The BACP, from my own examination, are npt very good at monitoring those on their register as I know of several therapists on their who don't even use evidence based methods, quite openly, and have joined purely for the badge, then there are those breaching the advertising policy and BACP do absolutely nothing about it!

[Rennie1989]

There are talks that counsellors would have to be on a mandatory body at some point, like nurses in the NMC and doctors in the RCP. When this will happen and what the body would be called is still unsure. For the time being most counsellors are under the BACP and it is the most respected out of them all. This discussion of a mandatory body has been going on in parliament for years and nothing yet has been done. Even though counsellors are self-regulated the general public are more likely to want a counsellor who is registered (and usually accredited) than a counsellor who is not.

The BACP does have a Heads of Complaint policy and do strike counsellors off their register if they fail to adhere to the Ethical Principles. Unfortunately, unless a formal complaint has been made then nothing can be done. For professions like nursing people can see if they are going against their professional practice, like other patients, staff members etc and can then be reported. Counsellors work on their own between themselves and their clients in a secure room, nobody can see in and nobody can hear what is going on. Because of the nature of why clients see counsellors they may become too emotionally insecure to report the counsellor if they feel that they are going against their ethics.

I cannot speak for psychotherapists but counsellors are taught theories from different categories of psychology and from different doctors/psychologists/etc. We are taught what Freud documented and practiced, as well as Jung, Adler, Rogers, etc. Counsellors are widely Humanistic and CBT rather than psychoanalytic, because the later is as far away from counselling as you can get. But these are only theories, there is no proof that we act in our ways because of what happened in our childhood or because of said trauma. Counsellors will often use elements of theories and different theories for different clients because of what they thought worked best in their experience. As long as the client benefits from the sessions and no harm is caused then that is what matters.

[MyNameIsTerry]

The Bill of Parliment raised by Geraint Davies MP specifically mentions the HCPC taking the role and asks them to produce the framework for regulation. This would make sense since there are already 2 job titles in the counselling & therapy sector that are covered by the HCPC hence cannot be used without their permission or a fine is risked. The first Bill stalled out for some reason but the 2nd was raised quickly afterwards to also include additional requirements to cover therapists who were offering services to convert homosexuals to heterosexuals. So, I think its likely that this was going on in the background, because it was all over the media and it appears there have been some investigations into specific individuals that caused this addition, and the Bill was parked in some way to allow for either amendment or cancellation with a new one.

The BACP have an advertising policy, which it is their responsibility to enforce or escalate to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) where a therapist will not comply. They recently also created a self monitoring policy to spot check those on their register, which is good because it shouldn't be left to the public to raise a complaint to monitor their members, as it isn't in other sectors, and its unlikely any member of the public would be able to when it comes to eligibility criteria. The code of ethics side, other than where breached by these areas that can be policed internally, would sit with a complaint as you say.

However, I do know of one charity that has made a complaint to the BACP to be told they are not interested in pursuing it. The issue is a blatant breach of several points of the advertising policy. I'm not sure why, but after reading it and checking out the company involved, its obvious they are in breach.

In terms of methods, I didn't mean accepted areas of psychology which would be fine as you say when applied in the right way. I meant the unproven pseudo's which BACP would not agree with and wouldn't allow you to join with but sadly as long as you have the qualifications, its allowed. Hopefully in time their new spot checks will turn these people up and boot them off the register.