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[Music] hi there my name's alex everett and i'm a play therapist based in the uk in this video i'm going to be talking about a topic which gets me really fired up and that is the regulation of counselling psychotherapy and creative therapies in the uk i think it's really important to begin by saying that at the moment there is no statutory government regulation of counselling and psychotherapy in the uk what that means is is that it would not be illegal for anybody to start up tomorrow and use those titles to practice whilst it is happening less frequently it does happen and there are people out there calling themselves counselors and psychotherapists who may have done a really short online course that involved no practical elements and whilst this may not be illegal it is highly unethical and it does pose a risk to the general public and somebody seeking counselling or therapy and at the time of making
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this video in january 2021 there are no plans for the government to regulate counselling and therapy anytime soon in fact on the 6th of march 2020 the bacp published an update about the statutory regulation of counselling and psychotherapy in the uk um and that can be accessed from their website one of the key things that arose from this debate were the following things more rules are not always the answer to every problem and while statutory regulation is sometimes necessary where significant risks to users or services cannot be mitigated in other ways it is not always the most proportionate or effective means of assuring the safe and effective care of service users so as such there's no plans to regulate the field anytime soon so you may be wondering if there is no statutory government regulation of this whole field then what measures are in place the professional standards authority or psa
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for short was established by the uk government to ensure the safety of the public and ensure their well-being and health the professional standards authority operates an accredited registered scheme what this means is they oversee a range of health and social care professions that are not regulated and that do not have protected titles the psa conduct a rigorous assessment of various different registers if these registers meet their standards they are then given the go-ahead to use the psa rubber stamp mark and what this means is registrants belonging to these registers have met certain standards and they are safe and ethical the psa accredits a number of different registers and at the time of making this video in january 2021 you can search the registers and i looked under the categories of child therapist counselor and psychotherapist and the following registers are accredited by the
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psa in 2021 these registers include the association of christian councillors the association of child psychotherapists the association of humanistic psychology practitioners the british association counselling and psychotherapy the british association of play therapists the british psychoanalytic council counselling and psychotherapy in scotland the human givens institute the national counselling society play therapy united kingdom and united kingdom council for psychotherapy in addition to the psa and the accredited registers scheme there is something else rippling rippling in the counseling and psychotherapy world that has been received very differently depending on the practitioner that you speak to the scope head framework is a collaboration between the bacp ukcp and bpc and it stands for scope of practice in education initially it was established by these professional
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bodies however in november 2020 it was opened up to include four additional professional bodies these bodies include the association of christian councillors the association of child psychotherapists the human givens institute and the national counselling society as the whole profession is a minefield and there are different qualifications different levels of qualifications and different entry points the purpose of scopehead is to provide clarity of the profession the scoped framework aims to map the minimum training requirements competencies and practice standards it is important to know that the scope head framework is still in its consultation phase and is not set in stone in the current climate i highly recommend that any counselor or therapist regardless of your modality looks into the scope head framework and considers what the implications might be for you if it does come
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into effect in some way shape or form in future so as the field is unregulated you may come across many different titles for practitioners in the counseling psychotherapy and creative therapy field some of them might include counsellor therapeutic counsellor psychotherapeutic counsellor psychotherapist creative therapist child therapist or integrative therapist it's really important to know that none of these are protected at all there is however one exception in the field and these titles include art psychotherapist art therapist music therapist and drama therapist now these are different because these are all regulated by the hcpc the healthcare professions council in contrast to the psa professional standards authority the hcpc is a statutory regulator of health and care professions the hcpc regulates 15 professions including social workers and a range of allied health
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professions they also regulate the creative therapies that i've mentioned art therapy music therapy and drama therapy what this means is that these titles are protected and you must be registered with the hcpc in order to use them if you are seem to be using these titles you can be prosecuted one of the things that seems to come up quite often is the misconception around a governing body and a membership body and there is quite a stark difference the term governing body implies statutory regulation and as i've already said only the hcpc registered therapists art therapists music therapists and drama therapists are regulated by the hcpc bylaw so that is a governing body for all other counsellors therapists and play therapists [Music] we belong to membership bodies i do think that this misconception can come up um for a number of reasons one of them being that insurance providers will ask you sometimes
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what governing body you belong to so i do think they have got muddled and are sometimes used interchangeably and what they're really asking you is what membership body you belong to however when they are asking you about your membership body what they're often looking for is for your name to be registered on a professional register that has been accredited by the professional standards authority okay and those are the professional membership bodies that i listed earlier in this video the important thing to bear in mind with professional membership bodies is that you choose to opt in and you do have the choice and autonomy whilst there may be overarching principles in different professional member bodies ethical frameworks code of conduct or similar there are variations and it's really important to be mindful of that when joining a membership body i think it's also important to bear in mind
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that when you do your counseling or therapy training that you may have done a course that is affiliated with a particular professional body but that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to stay with them post qualifying so you can choose a professional body that meets your professional needs and reflects your principles as a practitioner when joining a professional body for counseling or therapy i would encourage you to pose two questions and they are how does this meet my needs and the way i want to work as a practitioner and also how does it align with my principles and ethos as a therapist on a personal note um i just want to say i know how confusing this topic is and it is a complete minefield i've only learned this from trial and error and doing lots of research myself and i think it's really a really important topic that we need to be really mindful of and the public also needs to be mindful of as well
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when choosing a counselor or therapist to work with whilst there is unlikely to be statutory regulation anytime soon for the field i do think that greater clarity is needed and more joined up thinking between the variety of membership bodies that represent the counseling and psychotherapy profession in the uk thank you for watching