TRAINING PROVIDER REVIEWS POLICY
The Society offers various quality assurance schemes for training providers. The primary scheme is called “course accreditation. ”
This involves a process whereby the Society conducts an assessment of the training provider against our standards of accreditation. The assessment will involve components such as a full review of course content, policies and procedures pertaining to training and placement work and a site visit to observe teaching, skills work and reviews of student course work.
The purpose of course accreditation is to enable students, who qualify from an accredited course, to be given an easy and efficient route to individual registration with the Society’s Accredited Register and be recognised by the Society and general public as safe and competent to practice.
In addition to course accreditation, the Society also offers other forms of training recognition such as “Quality Checked” and “Advanced Specialist”. These forms of training recognition do not lead to individual registration with the Society but are different ways of recognising training which we have assessed.
Periodically, the Society re-accredits or re-approves training courses by asking for further, up to date information and by checking a selection of materials. This process may also include a further site visit.
All training providers are assessed on a case by case basis completely impartially by the Society.
We review information you send us only when you’ve completed your training provider complaints process.
We’re not a place of appeal, and we treat the information you send us with you as a witness.
As an Accrediting Body, The Society is not a place of appeal for complaints raised against training providers where you disagree with the outcome, and we do not hold complaints hearings concerning training providers as we would do concerning individual counsellors.
Instead, our role is one of reviewing information you send us while you act as a witness, providing information which may be relevant to your training provider’s ability to meet our training standards. You don’t have to understand our standards or procedures to send us information for review.
You should first raise your complaint with your provider rather than with the Society. Your provider should have a written complaints procedure and they are obliged to provide you with a copy and follow its steps. This should include an appeals step.
The Society is unable to review your information until you have finished any complaints process with your training provider, including an appeal. You will likely have a legally binding training contract which requires both parties to resolve their differences via a complaints process and you should follow this contract.
Who to Contact?
The quickest way to contact us is to email conduct@ncps.com.
You may also call us on 01903 213683 or write to the Professional Conduct Department, National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society, 19 Grafton Road, Worthing, BN11 1QT.
