Our members across Greater Manchester are invited to take part in a special mayoral hustings event.

We’ve joined with Devoconnect, the UK’s leading devolution thinktank, to put on a free online hustings event which brings together Greater Manchester mayoral candidates.

Greater Manchester is the only metropolitan area in the UK to have control of its own £6bn health and social care budget, which allows it to join up services to work better for individuals and communities across its 10 boroughs.

Importance of counselling

The mayoral elections provide an important opportunity for us to restate the importance of counselling and put it firmly on the agenda of all the candidates seeking office.

Building Back Better Mental Health in Greater Manchester is a free online hustings event taking place on Tuesday 20 April.

It brings together candidates, including current mayor Andy Burnham, to enable them to share their plans to tackle mental health issues and their views on why counselling and psychotherapy is critical to Greater Manchester’s Covid-19 recovery.

Speakers include:

Rt Hon Andy Burnham (Labour) CONFIRMED

Michael Elston (Independent) CONFIRMED

Melanie Horrocks (Green) CONFIRMED

Simon Lepori (Liberal Democrat) CONFIRMED

Key priority

Steve Mulligan, our Four Nations Policy and Engagement Lead, said: “This event will help us ensure that counselling and psychotherapy will be a key priority of the Greater Manchester Mayor as they take office in May,  and  central to their strategy to help the city and region build back better after the pandemic.

“We very much hope that members and counselling providers across the region are able to attend and help us champion the counselling sector at this exciting hustings on the cusp of these important elections.”

Members are encouraged to register for the event.