The main goals of Counsellors Together UK are as follows.
To ensure counsellors are valued and seen worthy of fair remuneration for their work.
To end the financial hardship and emotional duress suffered by many counsellors who feel they have no choice but to continue to volunteer or work for free, once qualified.
To campaign and advocate for counselling as a route to emotional and mental well-being in children, young people and adults.
To publicise the challenges that counsellors face, in order to raise awareness; and influence social, political and economic change; working with and on behalf of our 3600+ members.
We pledge to do this by;
1. Conducting research
2. Lobbying membership bodies
3. Lobbying local and national governmental departments
4. Raising public awareness
5. Collaborating with other counsellors and counselling organisations.
You can visit our main website (www.ukcounsellors.co.uk). Our website aims to meet two main objectives;
1. We will use it as a platform to publish News.
2. We will have an open forum where counsellors, other professionals and the general public can start and join in relevant discussions.
Counsellors Together UK is group run by counsellors for counsellors. Each member has the opportunity to influence the direction of the group. Admin always seek feedback from members before moving forward with any planned action.
If you are a UK counsellor or therapist you can join in a more confidential discussion over on our page here.
History
Counsellors Together UK was set up by Maria Albertsen in July 2017. She realised that many of her colleagues were living in poverty, whilst being expected to provide a much needed and often lifesaving service to others, whilst struggling in their own lives due to the exploitation they faced by organisations who expected them to work for free. This issue was highlighted further when Maria posted her concerns on social media and received over 300 responses from counsellors agreeing that this was a major complex problem. It is apparent to many counsellors that our profession and our caring natures are being widely exploited. What we know is that many counsellors are struggling to survive, to support their families and are often needing to access local food banks, whilst working for free and hoping that their voluntary placements will one day turn into paid work.
On the back of this discussion Maria set up the Facebook group Counsellors Together UK to give therapists a space to discuss these issues more in-depth and today we have over 3300 members and that number is growing every day.
Achievements
One of our main achievements to date was when in November 2017 our members got together to propose a resolution to the British Counselling and Psychotherapy Association (BACP) at their Annual General Meeting (AGM). The BACP is the largest membership organisation for counsellors in Europe and members were right to be angry that the BACP continued to advertise for organisations looking to ‘employ’ qualified counsellors to work for free.
Our resolution asked that the BACP would stop this demeaning practice. The resolution had overwhelming support and the BACP had no option but to uphold it and confirmed that from April 2017 they will no longer advertise for organisations who are looking to ’employ’ qualified counsellors to work for free. You can read more about this in our news section here.
Since the resolution was passed by the BACP other professional membership bodies have followed suit such as the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), which members of Counsellors Together UK are delighted about.
We have many more projects and campaigns planned for 2018 which we will keep you updated about over in the News section on our main website.
Influencing change
We know that by working together we can influence change and can work towards ensuring that counsellors are valued and respected and are paid for the work they do. Counsellors undertake professional training for many years, most often at Degree level and beyond, which is demanding both academically and personally and this should be noted. We are not people who sit and have friendly chats over a cup of tea as some would suggest but we are highly qualified, educated and skilled people. We often work with the most vulnerable people in society, helping individuals and communities to change and often saving lives as we do so. At the very least we deserve and we demand to be paid for the work that we do.
Join in
If you are a counsellor, psychotherapist or other related professional and are living in the UK and you would like to become involved then please do join us. You take part in discussion here on our page or join our private Facebook group here. You can also find us on Twitter too, just click here.
If you would like to receive our monthly Newsletter then you can access it by visiting our website - just click the ‘Sign Up’ button here on this page, and then enter your name and email address in the ‘Join our mailing list’ form and you’ll be automatically signed up.
We are also interested in hearing the options and thoughts from the general public and invite you to also join us here to share your views.
We look forward to hearing from you all.
Thank you for reading
CTUK Admin
