You must be in practice when you apply, and have been practising for a minimum of three years. This period can start from when you see your first client, which may include your student placement.

For accreditation, being in practice means you must be seeing at least one client on a regular basis.

Any practice you use in your application should be a mutually contracted therapeutic relationship with a client or clients with the purpose of bringing about effective change or enhanced wellbeing. The work may be short or long term but must be respectful of the clients’ wishes, supporting them as they identify their own goals, come to their own conclusions and reach their own decisions. It should also be supervised to the required level.

You'll be asked for details of your practice in three separate sections of the application form.

Current practice details

Here you need to provide details of your current practice and setting or settings.

This will include how many client hours you complete each month and all the client groups you work with.

If you work in more than one setting, you should complete a current practice form for each role.

Practice log

You must be able to demonstrate a minimum of 450 supervised practice hours, over a period of three to six years (these do not have to be consecutive years).

At least 150 hours of your practice hours must have taken place after you successfully completed all your counselling or psychotherapy training, starting after the date on the last training certificate you submit for your application.

You can use any appropriately contracted and supervised counselling or psychotherapy practice towards your application, including:

  • paid or voluntary work
  • face to face, phone or online counselling
  • work with adults, couples, groups (to include families) or children and young people

You cannot use hours completed through:

  • assessment interviews, helpline or counselling skills work
  • working as a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP) or Mental Health Mentor
  • roles that offer coaching, guided self-help or text-based counselling

Please include all settings for each year you submit.

If your sessions are 50 minutes long, you can claim a ‘therapeutic hour’. If your sessions are shorter or longer than this, count the actual time the sessions are scheduled for.

Diary of current practice

Please give details of your work with clients over the past two weeks. (If you can't use the last two weeks for any reason, use a two-week period from the past six months.) The hours of counselling or psychotherapy work you use in your application should not include assessment interviews, training sessions, supervision, cancelled or missed sessions.

The number of clients sessions provided in this section must be at least half your client hours that you have stated you undertake each month.

Your practice diary should show all client types that you work with. Please only include your current practice setting or settings in this section.

Do not give clients’ names. Give each client a reference letter or number and age in brackets. For example, for a client aged 45 and referred to as client A, enter A (45).