Tag Archives: Diversity

BACP seen as flawed at home and abroad

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There continues to be a lot of support for my stance and criticism not only of BACP but the training organisations that are accredited by them:

 

I’m in my second year of a Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling with an Integrative approach in London. Your post about leaving the BACP over their LGBTQ diversity issues worries me as a trainee. As I’m told at every stage I need to be BACP registered and Accredited. I’m so glad I received today the link from you and a hard copy of Therapy Today on this issue. It is so true that there is a lack of training regarding this. In our institution we have had a days session and if it wasn’t delivered from my colleague who is Trans and myself and aware of your work and other material on Gay Affirmation therapy and how Counsellors / Therapists should work with clients presenting these issues. I would hate to think what would have been delivered. We only presented to one class of three! It really seems a token gesture and not taken seriously for those in current training to challenge their own views and prejudices! 

Not sure why the lecturers didn’t deliver it? Perhaps they aren’t trained or up to date with this??? Needs to be rolled out to all institutions!

Another counsellor responded:

This is so familiar, so many people here delivered the only LGBT component of their course, as students, often having to balance outing themselves with tackling prejudice and outdated notions

Another said:

I qualified as an Integrative Counsellor in 2008. We had no training whatsoever concerning LGBTQI clients. I researched myself and went on a couple of courses with Pink Therapy. Sad to hear it seems much the same in 2016!

Some international support

I read of your resignation from the BACP today. I think you are doing the right thing, and someone of your stature doing this may possibly effect some shift, certainly makes people take notice. I am a fellow psychologist; I resigned from APA years ago due to the terrible issues around torture, failure to take treatment efficacy seriously, and also the foolhardy drive to attain prescription privileges. Better to stand apart, in my opinion, than to be associated with an unethical herd. The issues around conversion therapy are quite serious and real, and no responsible psychologist should ignore it.

and this one:

This morning I read about your resignation from the BACP, and I just want to say thank you so much.

I am lucky to be a young queer woman in Boston, where the atmosphere of most places is somewhere between tolerant and accepting. But in my experiences of mental healthcare, I’ve seen a completely different world. So many psychologists and counsellors are uneducated and untrained about LGBT+ matters, and I’ve seen so much damage done to my queer community because of it. 

I am graduating from high school in a few months, and as I head into college to major in mental health counseling and social work, I feel like it’s important to have faith in the mental healthcare world that I want to work in. It’s really hard to have that faith when I’ve already seen so many problems with the system, especially in the treatment of LGBT+ people. But actions like yours give me hope– I read your statement and remembered that systems can be changed, and the people who choose to work in the counseling world do that work because they genuinely want to help others. 

Thank you so, so much for reaffirming that for me, and thank you for the work you’re doing. I imagine it’s not easy to speak out against a group like the BACP. The LGBT+ world is lucky to have you.

On the monopoly BACP seem to have with employers:

FFS. That leaves me in a very bad situation. It’s not like I have much choice of professional organisations to belong to.

And another:

I’m not sure where else I can go in terms of membership organisations. Makes me feel angry at the conservatism of the BACP.

And another:

I’m a referral counsellor for a therapy centre based on my BACP accreditation, it would mean losing my livelihood unless I could persuade the therapy centre to accept the National Counselling Society.

What could BACP be doing?

Some people have asked me what specifically could BACP be doing to support the LGBT communities better. Here are a few suggestions to be going on with:

  1. Develop some core competencies on Equality and Diversity related issues that take account of the complexity of intersectionality.
  2. Ensure therapists receive some basic sexuality awareness training so that they can discuss sexual issues with their clients.
  3. Ensure Gender and Sexual Diversity issues are woven throughout the therapy training and not just a tokenistic add on.
  4. Closely audit the courses BACP accredit to ensure they are meeting these requirements.
  5. The training should be delivered either by faculty if they feel competent, or by external trainers. Students enrolled in the programme should not be delivering this training.
  6. As the major UK therapy organisation and therefore the wealthiest, BACP could be funding a researcher to produce an FAQ on Conversion Therapy  and develop some training materials on this subject as a resource for all of the signatory organisations and their members.
  7. Actively support people from disadvantaged and underserved communities to train as therapists.  In particular, increase the availability of  therapy from Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and Trans and Gender Diverse counsellors.  Both groups are significantly economically disadvantaged in society and yet also have poorer mental health and so we need to ensure training isn’t only affordable by wealthy people. This is why we’re offering a couple of training bursaries for our own two-year PG Diploma in Gender and Sexual Diversity Therapy to Trans and BAME therapists.  It’s estimated that basic therapy training costs between £20-£80k and for those people who then want to go on and specialise in working with Gender, Sexual and Relationship Diverse Clients it’s going to add another £5k.

In one of my earlier blogs I mentioned how both BAATN and ourselves have set up volunteer led mentoring schemes to support those members of our communities who are training to be therapists in what can be quite alienating and hostile environments.

Dominic Davies
22 Feb 2016

How we got shortlisted for the National Diversity Awards

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The first step in our nomination for the National Diversity Awards was when Andrea Roth who translated two of our recent papers into her native German as part of our Translations Project submitted our name.  Andrea joined our team of volunteer translators a couple of years ago and we’re now covering almost all the major languages of the world. Her nomination was completely unsolicited and unexpected.

We then ran a small social media campaign asking for support of the nomination and the next we heard was we were asked to submit to the judges some background on the organisation and what we do.  The text below is what we sent in.

National Diversity Awards 2013 Nomination

Pink Therapy is the largest independent therapy organisation to provide information and therapeutic support to the LGBTIQ+ communities. We see our role as not to duplicate direct service provision through the voluntary sector in offer centre based counselling, but rather to provide a wider framework, training counsellors and therapists of all sexualities and genders to better understand LGBTIQ+ communities, and to contribute to the debate about service provision and commenting on issues of concern for our communities from a sex-positive perspective.  Our website and social media work are important points of contact with the LGBTIQ+ communities.

We look beyond the more regular LGBT sector and take a wider view of gender and sexual diversity, providing therapy and training around other disenfranchised and marginalised groups including Asexuality, BDSM/Kink, Intersex and those in consensually non monogamous relationships of all sexualities and genders.  We’ve provided a support group for asylum seekers and refugees and offered training for therapists on this issue too.

Funding and Staffing
Our work is largely done by the goodwill of a couple of part time volunteers/interns and the work of our Founder and Director, Dominic Davies. We receive no grants or external funding and is funded from the small profit on course training fees and client fees from Dominic’s private practice.

Services to the Communities
Our website contains a fairly extensive knowledge base of websites and self help books which can help people who can’t afford therapy or where clients in therapy can engage in bibliotherapy to augment and enhance the therapeutic process.

Our Directory of Pink Therapists offers a national online database of therapists of all gender and sexualities who offer non-pathologising therapy.  We hope to expand this to include complementary therapists who understand some of the specific challenges of LGBTIQ+ health issues

Pink Therapy’s founder and director has gathered a team of highly skilled Clinical Associates who contribute to raising the standards of therapy available to the LGBTIQ+ communities through offering consultation and clinical supervision of other therapists as well as contributing to our world renowned and highly respected extensive training programme. Our clinical associates have generally all contributed to the field through publishing, speaking at conferences and are recognised in their own professional fields as leading the development of raising the quality of services to the LGBTIQ+ communities

International Development
We were invited to become members of International Lesbian and Gay Association.  We’re also members of the World Association for Sexual Health and World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

We’re very committed to working internationally to help the mental health   of LGBTIQ+ overseas through training therapists and psychologists.  In the past two years our Director has visited Colombia Dublin and Malta and will be visiting Hungary and Brazil in the next two months.

For the past four years we have fundraised and run a week long International Summer School with therapists coming from  Benin (West Africa) Brazil x2, Columbia, Croatia, Eire x3, Denmark x2, England x4, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy x3, Northern Ireland x2 Poland x2, Portugal, Scotland x2,  Serbia x2, Singapore x3, Spain x2, Turkey, USA x2.  One each course we offer a bursary to a trans* counsellor and have been very active in supporting trans* people.

With help from a team of volunteers have translated some of our recent publications into a range of languages.  Now covering about 80% of the world.

We are active in social media and print media, responding to requests from journalists and editors and recognise our wider experience and expertise.  We recently appointed an intern Press office who’s written about some of our achievements on our Press Release page We’re on Facebook with almost 1200 likes. We’re on Twitter with 1500 followers. LinkedIN 1,146 connections and recently began this blog.

We then heard we were shortlisted from over 4k applicants to be one of three LGBT community organisations up for an award.  Amazing!

We were asked to submit a short 60 second video on why we should win (click link or see below)

Pamela Gawler-Wright and I will attend the awards ceremony and find out how we did on 20 September.  We’ve never been externally recognised by anyone before like this and so it’s exciting to have even got this far!

Wish us luck!

Dominic Davies
Director