Covid-19: Collaborate to maximise the role of counselling and psychotherapy
Together with the BACP and UKCP, we would like you to add your voice to our important campaign to maximise the role of counselling and psychotherapy in helping to support people through the Covid 19 crisis, and in the longer-term, helping to repair shattered communities and lives and return the nation to normality. Join the campaign here.
We have identified three practical action that Governments across the UK could take now to help mobilise the counselling workforce to tackle growing need. Please sign up to support our letter to the UK Health Secretary, Matt Hancock MP, and equivalent Health Ministers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Your voice will help us demonstrate strong support for counselling during this critical time.
It is critical we come together during these challenging times. We are reaching out to all professional bodies and membership groups across the counselling sector to join this campaign and will add your logo to our campaign website.
The role of professional therapists is now more important than ever, as the nation struggles to come to terms with the mental health impact of changing work and family circumstances, financial insecurity, isolation, bereavement, societal breakdown and prolonged uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 outbreak.
Many counsellors and psychotherapists are already playing a vital role on the frontline of this epidemic, supporting vulnerable people, sometimes on a voluntary basis, including medical staff and other key workers who are struggling with their own mental health.
However, many providers, private practitioners and charities have also seen funding cuts and sessions drop as social isolating measures have come into force, reducing their ability to provide support. As the crisis grows, the need for urgent therapeutic support will further increase and we wish to offer our full support to Government to ensure this need is met.
We are urging Government to consider the following urgent proposals, designed to support their wider aims in steering the nation through these most difficult challenges.
- Work with us to ensure there is a workforce to deliver a comprehensive mental health response to the Covid-19 crisis, to ensure increased demand is met with high quality care.
- Tackle labour market barriers – many counsellors and psychotherapists are self-employed and can only work to support others if they themselves are supported. We want to see a much more supportive package for self-employed workers in the form of a Temporary Income Protection Fund. We would also welcome the establishment of a business transformation grant to help ease the financial burden of moving from face-to-face to online working, and to ensure continuity of support, especially for vulnerable people.
- Signposting the public to the very best mental health support – we are keen to partner with Government and others in the mental health sector on a high-profile campaign to ensure that key workers and members of the public are supported to access qualified therapists. Making it as easy as possible for people to easily find the support they need in one place.
