We’re re-running our successful GP surgery advertising campaign to highlight how counselling changes lives and to direct people looking for counsellors to our members.

The campaign features leaflets and posters in 3,000 GP practices across England, Scotland and Wales for the next four months.

Our leaflets introduce what counselling is, what a counsellor can help with and how to access counselling.

They also explain the importance of choosing a counsellor who is listed on a Professional Standards Authority accredited register – such as BACP’s – and link to a dedicated Change your life page on our website.

When we first ran the campaign in 2021, the posters featured in 3,000 surgeries and more than 70,000 leaflets were picked up from the practices.

This is part of our national Counselling changes lives campaign that has taken places across media, social media, and Google searches, and focuses on raising awareness of BACP, promoting the role of counselling and psychotherapy and directing the public to our members for support.

The campaign has led to a huge increase in media coverage, a rise in public awareness of BACP, and created new enquiries for our members through our directory.

Adam Pollard, our Head of Marketing and Engagement, said: “We’re thrilled to be running this campaign again as it is a key part of our sustained push to ensure members of the public are aware of counselling, how it can help them and how to access a registered, BACP therapist.

“We hope these posters and leaflets will catch the eye of patients and their loved ones in GP surgeries who may be struggling with their mental health and not sure what to do, or who are considering accessing counselling.

“We want them to know that we have tens of thousands of qualified and experienced members working in a variety of settings – including the third sector, workplaces, employee assistance programmes and in private practice – who can support people with their mental health and wellbeing.

“We’re so pleased to be able to champion our members through this exciting campaign.”

Our ongoing Counselling changes lives campaign also includes our work with a PR agency to increase national and regional media coverage of BACP and our members and to ensure counselling and psychotherapy has a bigger role in the mental health media conversation.

Last year this included our Couples collective campaign, our Mindometer survey and our Therapy Talks film, which all received national media coverage.

We ‘ll continue to update members on the activities and results that are part of our Counselling changes lives campaign.