SCoPEd

We’d like to draw your attention to the article in December 2023’s issue of Therapy Today regarding SCoPEd. Do read it to ensure that you understand where you stand with the new rules.

SCoPEd (the Scope of Practice and Education) is a framework that maps existing core competences and practice standards for counsellors and psychotherapists working with adults. There are different levels of competency mapped across five themes:

– professional framework;
– assessment;
– therapeutic relationship;
– knowledge and skills;
– self-awareness and reflection

BACP will be aligning membership categories to reflect a counsellor’s position within the framework. And members will need to provide evidence, just as they do now, to demonstrate levels of competence.

BACP and other associations will be adopting the framework as a way to present a unified approach to employers and clients, and a shared understanding of the minimum standards that should be expected from people in the profession. It will allow counsellors from different training routes to be recognised equally and provide a way for those with specialist skills to be recognised.

Course providers won’t need to be fully aligned with the framework until 2028, but BACP are going to start introducing the new framework in 2024, beginning with the accreditation route.

Some Senior Accredited members are in protest about the way the changes affect them specifically. If this is you, you may like to contact T M R Gough <snr.accred.protest@gmail.com> who is co-ordinating a response on this issue.