SCoPEd is an important part of our wider work to support and enable our members so they can have access to more opportunities to provide professional help to more people across society.

Our challenge is that the six professional bodies involved have approximately 75,000 members, but it’s a confusing and fragmented profession to those looking at us from the outside.

SCoPEd can be part of the solution:

The SCoPEd framework will allow us to better articulate and advocate what our members can do as part of our overall work to represent them.

It will enable BACP to more effectively promote the skills and abilities of our members in a way that hasn’t been done before.

We believe this means our members will have access to more paid opportunities to provide help to more clients.

This is important because of the benefits we believe it can bring.

SCoPEd will benefit trainees and qualified counsellors and psychotherapists by:

  • enabling opportunities for growth for all trainees and qualified counsellors and psychotherapists at all stages of their professional journey, without having to retrain
  • creating a shared framework agreed by different PSA accredited register bodies which brings greater credibility to the profession
  • encouraging a diverse and varied profession accessible by therapists with very different backgrounds and types and levels of training, knowledge and experience
  • giving employers and commissioners a single framework to use which will help the profession become better understood, valued and trusted by those who employ therapists and commission our services
  • ensuring our profession is better understood, valued and trusted, which we believe will increase access to paid opportunities for qualified counsellors and psychotherapists and enable them to thrive wherever they are represented in the framework

SCoPEd will benefit clients, employers, commissioners and wider society by:

  • presenting a clearer picture of the wider counselling and psychotherapy profession, showing collaboration across the profession in this way for the first time
  • distinguishing highly trained and qualified counsellors and psychotherapists, which includes all BACP members, from those who undertake trainings which fall far short of the minimum requirements identified in the SCoPEd framework
  • giving greater clarity about the range of skills that different counsellors and psychotherapists can provide
  • mapping the shared minimum training standards, knowledge and experience in this way for the first time
  • enabling employers and commissioners to make more evidence-based and informed choices by improving their understanding of the skills, knowledge and experience of a wider pool of qualified therapists

Ultimately, we believe SCoPEd will enable counsellors and psychotherapists to have greater access to more opportunities to provide professional help for people across society.

See also