The BACP Counselling and Psychotherapy Awards were presented straight after the Evening with Irvin Yalom event on Monday 4 February at the QEII Conference Centre in London.

The awards scheme provides a platform to celebrate the achievements of individuals/organisations working within the counselling and psychotherapy field, with a focus this year on improving access to counselling and psychotherapy and outstanding research.

Improving access to counselling and psychotherapy is currently high on the agenda for everybody working within the profession. Adapting counselling and psychotherapy services to meet client needs and communicating the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy within communities, are both key to improving access.

Communicating the benefits of counselling and psychotherapy

This award was presented to the Royal Academy for Deaf Education, which was recognised for its counselling provision within the Deaf community, and the work they do to raise awareness of the service in the South West. The judges felt it was a unique service that has been of great value to the hearing impaired in that part of the country.

View more details of the service here .

The University of Dhaka, Sylvia McLeod and Washington Mind were also shortlisted in this category for their work.

Adapting counselling and psychotherapy services

Two awards were presented in this category:

Hospice in the Weald, based in Pembury, was successful for its new counselling service which was improved to better meet the needs of the individuals in their in-care patient unit and families of the patients.

Read more about the service here .

Brunel University Counselling service was also successful for a new wellbeing service called Well@Brunel, which supports both the staff and the students of the university.

Click here to read more about the service.

Saheliya Counselling Service, based in Edinburgh was also shortlisted in this category for their work.

The Outstanding research project

Katherine McArthur was awarded the Outstanding research project award, for her pilot randomised controlled trial of school-based humanistic counselling for psychological distress in young people.

Our thanks go to everybody who submitted applications for this year’s awards, which once again presented the judges with an incredibly high standard of entries.