Depending on your membership grade, you can promote your membership in several ways. These develop as you continue on your membership journey with us.
If you have any questions about these guidelines, which replace our previous members' advertising policy, please get in touch. You can download your logos and certificates from your account area of our website.
From April 2022 we’ve changed the BACP member logo to become a ‘collective’ mark. A collective mark is a specific type of trademark used by members of an association or trade body to indicate membership or to identify the products and services of members from those of non-members.
We have regulations that govern the use of our collective mark. These regulations say that when members use their BACP member logo, it must state that it is a collective mark, owned by BACP. To comply with regulations, the words ‘collective mark’ have been added to all relevant BACP member logos.
Non-registered members and non-accredited organisations
As a student, newly qualified member, retired member or organisation, you’re not yet able to use designatory letters, logos or certificates. Once you join our Register, or your service or course becomes accredited, these will be available to you.
When you’re describing your relationship with BACP, make your status clear by describing yourself as a Student Member of BACP or an Individual Member of BACP (this designation is specifically for members belonging to the Individual Member category and shouldn’t be used by those in other categories, including retired members).
Student, Individual and Retired members are not represented in the SCoPEd framework as this represents qualified therapists, who have joined our Register. Therefore, you should not describe your competences and practice standards as being aligned to the SCoPEd framework, within your advertising materials.
You should describe your organisation as an Organisational Member of BACP. Make sure you don’t present people working for or on behalf of your organisation as being BACP members unless they hold their own individual membership.
Registered members
Congratulations on achieving registered status.
The promotional tools below make up a useful marketing kit that you can use across online and print media. You can use your designatory letters to promote your membership on business cards, letterheads and online profiles such as LinkedIn. You can display your logo on your website and printed materials such as leaflets and print advertisements. You can also print out your Registration Certificate and display it in your therapy room, reassuring clients of your professional membership.
You should display your registration number on all of your promotional materials. This demonstrates your credibility as a committed and qualified counselling professional. It also gives reassurance to clients and potential clients by allowing them to check your entry on the BACP Register of Counsellors and Psychotherapists, which is accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
You can refer to yourself as a Registered Member of BACP, and describe yourself as a Registered counsellor (or psychotherapist or counselling professional). You can also use the designatory letters Registered Member MBACP.
Registered members are aligned to column A in the SCoPEd framework. As a Registered Member of BACP, you can refer to your competences and practice standards as being aligned to column A, within your advertising materials.
Example logo (your unique logo is available to download from your account area of our website):
Accredited members
As an accredited member, you’ve achieved a high standard of knowledge, experience and development that is widely valued throughout the industry. A huge congratulations, and thank you for your commitment to the profession and to BACP.
Your status is reflected in the designatory letters and logos you can use. You can describe yourself as an Accredited Member of BACP .
You can use the designatory letters Registered Member MBACP (Accred).
Registered accredited members are aligned to column B in the SCoPEd framework. As a registered accredited member of BACP, you can refer to your competences and practice standards as being aligned to column B, within your advertising materials.
Example logos (your unique logo is available to download from your account area of our website):
Senior accredited members
As a senior accredited member, you’ve achieved a high standard of knowledge, experience and development that is widely valued throughout the industry. A huge congratulations and thank you for your commitment to the profession and to BACP.
Your status is reflected in the designatory letters and logos you can use. You can describe yourself as a Senior Accredited Member of BACP.
You can use the designatory letters Registered Member MBACP (Snr Accred).
Registered senior accredited members who have achieved this status prior to February 2024 are aligned to column B in the SCoPEd framework. This is because our previous senior accreditation schemes do not align with column C competences and practice standards. As a senior registered accredited Member of BACP, who has achieved this status prior to February 2024, you can refer to your competences and practice standards as being aligned to column B, within your advertising materials.
Registered senior accredited members who have achieved this status from February 2024 onwards, are aligned to column C in the SCoPEd framework and you can refer to your competences and practice standards as being aligned to column C, within your advertising materials.
If you are unsure which SCoPEd column you align with as a registered senior accredited member, please contact us so we can advise which column your competences and practice standards are aligned to.
Example logo (your unique logo is available to download from your account area of our website):
Specialist accreditation schemes
Some members may hold specialist accreditations, such as supervision or children and young people (CYP). These sit outside of the SCoPEd framework, but will be mapped to corresponding BACP competence frameworks. These specialist accreditations can be used within your advertising materials alongside your membership, for example, I’m a Senior Accredited Practitioner for Children and Young People, and a logo will be available for you to download.
Example specialist accreditation logos
CYP specialist accreditation:
Supervision specialist accreditation:
Coaching specialist accreditation (not available yet):
Those members with more than one specialist accreditation will be able to download a combined logo:
International registered members
The PSA Accredited Register scheme only applies within the UK and has no jurisdiction in either British Crown Dependencies or British Overseas Territories. So if you’re based overseas (including the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) your logo and certificate won't include the PSA element.
Example logos (your unique logo is available to download from your account area of our website):
Dual membership
If you have membership with another SCoPEd partner and you’re aligned to a different column of the SCoPEd framework with them, you can reference that within your advertising materials. You must however ensure that you reference that alongside that partners’ membership category, not BACP’s.
Accredited Services
Congratulations on achieving accredited status for your counselling or psychotherapy service - you’ve successfully demonstrated that you offer an accountable, ethical, professional and responsive service. You should advertise your service as a BACP Accredited Service.
Accreditation is awarded to the specific counselling or psychotherapy service, not to the organisation, so you cannot say that you are an accredited organisation or an accredited organisational member of BACP.
Make sure that you don’t present people working for or on behalf of your service as themselves being BACP members unless they hold their own individual membership.
Example logo (your Accredited Service logo will be emailed to you by our Professional Standards team):
Accredited Courses
Training providers, employers, prospective students and those already in training identify our course accreditation as a mark of a good practitioner training – congratulations on achieving this widely recognised standard. You should advertise your course as a BACP Accredited Course.
Example logo (your Accredited Course logo will be emailed to you by our Professional Standards team):
Getting it right
By promoting your status and your work in a clear and consistent way, you help us make our messages stronger and easier for people to understand. We trademark our logos to help us protect the way they’re used so that our messages remain accurate and easily recognisable.
Please only use the logos in their original format – don’t change things like the colour, typeface, orientation or aspect ratio.
Our main counselling changes lives logo, pictured below, shouldn’t be used.
If you provide adjunctive services which are either complementary to your counselling or psychotherapy work or as a stand-alone treatment, for example reiki, you should not state or imply to clients via advertising that such services are recognised by BACP or that your competencies in that area have been endorsed by BACP.
All our registered, accredited and senior accredited members are represented in the SCoPEd framework.
It’s important to remember that all members, whatever membership category you’re in, will be able to practise competences in other SCoPEd columns providing you have the right skills, knowledge and experience to do so but you are unable to advertise being aligned to the SCoPEd column these are from.
If you’re a BACP member and you promote your services inaccurately, you may be in breach of the Ethical Framework, which puts you at risk of being subject to our Professional Conduct Procedure. If you leave BACP through cancellation, termination of membership by BACP or non-renewal, you should make sure that any mention of BACP membership and the associated logos are removed from your website and promotional materials straight away.
If we notice that you’re promoting your membership or partnership with BACP in a way that isn’t consistent with these guidelines, we’ll get in touch with you and help you to put things right.
When we feel it’s necessary, we may refer cases to the Advertising Standards Authority or the relevant Trading Standards authority.
Interim suspension orders
If considered necessary for public protection, the Investigation and Assessment Committee can suspend a member from BACP membership for up to 18 months, whilst the complaint is taken to a disciplinary hearing. Suspension from membership will mean that the that member cannot work under the auspices of BACP and that they cannot promote their membership in anyway (including the use of BACP logo’s or designatory letters previously afforded to them).
Those members who are on the BACP Register, will also be suspended from the Register until such a time membership is reinstated and can also no longer advertise on BACP’s Find a Therapist Directory.
If you want to advertise your membership or partnership with BACP in any way that isn’t covered in these guidelines, or if you have any questions, please get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.
BACP’s policies are subject to review and can be amended at any time. It is important that you regularly review these documents.
7 February 2024