Policy news, Autumn 2019
Updates on our policy and public affairs work

Cesca Kirtley- Paine, our Parliamentary Officer, chaired a fringe event at Labour’s conference about mental health challenges in schools. Convened by the University of Manchester’s policy unit, the panel included Ruth George MP, who recently led a debate in parliament on mental health support for young people, as well as speakers from The Anna Freud Centre, National Association of Head Teachers and the University of Manchester.

Cesca had a constructive meeting with Carolyn Harris MP, a longstanding campaigner on children’s rights and criminal justice who is keen to work with BACP. She has invited Cesca to visit a project in her constituency as well as asking parliamentary questions on our behalf and offered to host a debate on access and quality of counselling and in prisons.

Our Healthcare Lead Matt Smith-Lilley took part in a special round table to discuss building the NHS mental health services of the future at the Liberal Democrat conference. The session, which was led by Sir Vince Cable MP with representatives from a range of healthcare bodies, focused on the mental health workforce, funding and early intervention. Matt used the opportunity to build a strong case for counselling. Sir Vince’s team have since contacted us to ask we provide some Parliamentary questions to help push BACP policy priorities in Westminster.

Martin Bell, our head of policy and stakeholder relations, attended the Conservative conference in Manchester where, with BPC and UKCP, he hosted a lively round table debate around psychological therapies. He was joined by stakeholders from organisations including Barnado’s as well as PPCs and local councillors. Key themes emerging included access, choice and children and young people.

We’ve produced a briefing exploring counselling for people living with age-related sight loss. In the UK, 80% of sight loss happens to people aged 60 and older. The Macular Society’s telephone counselling service provides therapy and signposting to people with age-related macular degeneration. Jeremy Bacon, our Older People Lead, met CEO Sarah Oakley and Suzanne Roberts, counselling service manager and BACP member, to discuss shared areas of interest, how our older people strategy relates to their work, and access to future case-studies.

We were well represented at Making Connections in Llandudno, sharing details of our policy and engagement work in Wales.

We were pleased to have Ruth Conway as keynote speaker, who attended on behalf of the Welsh Education Secretary, Kirsty Williams AM.

Ruth was introduced onto stage by our CYPF Lead Jo Holmes, who talked about our work to develop school-based counselling in Wales. We’re jointly launching the latest School-based Counselling in Schools handbook with Welsh Government later in the Autumn.

Our Four Nations Lead Steve Mulligan and CYPF Lead Jo Holmes joined representatives of the Scottish Qualification Authority (SQA) and COSCA Counselling to lead a meeting with officials tasked with the implementation of 350 new counsellors across Scotland’s schools, a £60m programme of government commitment.

As well as calling for better communication on their progress to counter concerns from our members that Scottish Government weren’t prioritising this activity, we pushed officials to ensure adequate funded supervision and safeguards were in place so existing counsellors could retain their posts.

Behind the scenes, we’ve worked with SQA to develop a BACP-accredited course for people working with children and young people to be appropriately trained, and there will be fair access to courses across Scotland.

We were pleased to introduce Cathy Bell, member of CYPF division and pioneer of school-based counselling in Northern Ireland, who provided invaluable advice to officials.

Jo Holmes met with the Children’s Commissioner’s Office for England in support of its manifesto calling for a CAMH’s school-based counsellor in every school.

The commissioner is keen to secure NHS core funding from the £20bn rolling out over the next five years to part-fund counselling services in all schools, ideally commissioned out to the voluntary sector to provide age-appropriate counselling provision which fits within our CYP core competency framework.

The meeting provided both organisations’ policy teams with a focus to explore potential workforce development opportunities for BACP members in a climate where NHS mental health provision is currently under-staffed and under resourced.

As part of a ground-breaking young people’s music project in East London, Real Talk was launched to engage the local community in discussions around gang violence.

Hosted by Midi Music, it included pop-up counselling events held by member Glenda Roberts and volunteer counsellors.

Jo Holmes attended and met Wozzy Brewster OBE, Midi Music founder, an ambassador for young people who feels strongly about the lack of youth provision and support services.

Jo continues to liaise with Glenda, who is talking to Lewisham Council about proposals to support future paid counselling in the area.

Employment-related themes featured in the September editions of Therapy Today and Private Practice, with Kris Ambler contributing to articles on the employment market and a special feature on consortium building and public sector contracting.

This latter topic was the theme of a workshop at the Private Practice Conference in September. Members have responded well to these developments and we’re finalising a resource pack and online materials on consortia building and public sector contracting.

At a recent meeting of the John Lewis Partnership’s Working Well Coalition, we agreed to jointly submit a response to DWP’s consultation paper Health is everyone’s business: proposals to reduce ill-health related job loss.

We have been involved as a campaign partner and co-signed a letter, published in The Times, addressed to Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care and Work and Pensions. We’re involved in discussions with the Treasury and, through the coalition, have contributed to parliamentary questions on wellbeing at work.

Jo Holmes and Jeremy Bacon visited BACP-accredited service GCS sharing information about CYPF and older people priorities and how these can support and promote the work of the service.

Jo has invited GCS to present at the CYPF conference in February. Jeremy is following up with staff developing CPD training on work with older people, as well as including GCS data in analysis of older people’s access to counselling.

Emma Griffiths, CEO, explained the importance of BACP accreditation to the service, which strives to meet and maintain the highest standards, including only employing BACP-accredited therapists.

Emma urged more be done to ensure commissioners and funders understand accreditation as a mark of quality.

She said: “It was a pleasure to have you both visit and it made me realise how important it is to have face-to-face contact with accrediting bodies, even if only occasionally.

“There is so much to cover and I am really excited that we have at least found a starting point here.”