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.
My training provider won’t follow their process properly
If you can provide evidence that your training provider:
- Won’t follow their written process
- Won’t provide you with a copy of their written process
- Has unreasonably delayed their process
Then we may serve your provider with a “Process Notice” requiring them to follow their process properly and conclude your complaint within a reasonable time frame. We will, at our discretion, normally issue a process notice for any complaint lasting longer than six months if the evidence shows that this delay has been caused by the training provider.
Evidence outside of our remit
The following evidence is outside of our remit as an Accrediting Body (subject to the exceptions set out at the end of this document):
- Evidence related to claims about “value for money”
- Evidence regarding refund requests or financial negotiations
- Evidence regarding the ability to find work
- Evidence regarding placement provision
- Evidence regarding course recognition or the value of course recognition
- Evidence from a potential student, e.g. having a place declined
- Evidence about a provider declining to continue to train a student or removal from a course/failing a course
Examples of evidence related to the above are likely to be covered in your training contract and are a matter for you and your provider.
Evidence that may be within our remit
We generally accept information for review where you provide us with evidence that a training provider is not meeting our accreditation standards, such as:
- Evidence that your provider has not met educational standards e.g. their syllabus was not as described
- Evidence that your tutor or tutors were not properly qualified
- Evidence that your provider’s lessons were substandard
- Evidence that your provider repeatedly and unreasonably cancelled or delayed training, including marking
- Evidence that your provider behaved demonstrably unreasonably, at our discretion
- Evidence that specific training standards have not been met
Other evidence, at our sole discretion on a case by case basis
How we may review your evidence
We would expect to receive all documentation related to your complaint.
Once we receive your evidence, a case officer will be appointed who will decide whether or not:
- You have fully explored and completed your training provider complaints process
- Your evidence is within our remit
- Your evidence may indicate an issue with your training provider’s adherence to our standards of accreditation
Your case officer will then conduct an internal review, by either:
- Adding your evidence to our annual review process so that it forms a part of our annual review of your training provider, or
- At our sole discretion commencing an immediate review.
Your case officer may at any time request more information from you or your training provider. They may also at their sole discretion refer your evidence for review by our Professional Standards Committee.
Possible outcomes of our review process
Our review process is designed to safeguard our Accreditation scheme by ensuring that our training providers comply with our standards. Possible outcomes of a review can include:
- No further action by the Society
- A Letter of Advice to your training provider, which could contain learning points (for example, asking your provider to consider some course material changes.)
- A Condition to your training provider, where they are required to make a change before their next re-accreditation and provide evidence of the change before their accreditation can continue
- Suspension of Accreditation – reserved for serious or multiple non compliance with our standards, suspension is revoked once the training provider has provided evidence of compliance
- Removal of Accreditation – reserved for the most serious breaches of our standards, including non compliance with conditions or with our review process
If the Society does not suspend or remove accreditation, our review process will remain internal and you will not be given full information as to the outcome of our process.
Appeals
The Society’s decision as to the outcome of our review process shall be final and there are no rights of appeal.
Complaints by Third Parties
If you are not a student then you may request a review of a training provider by providing us with evidence that is in our remit as an Accrediting Body.
We do not accept anonymous submissions and your evidence will be shared with the training provider who will be invited to respond.
We will take into account any conflict of interest by a third party, for example, if you are writing on behalf of a competitor.
We will then follow our review process and we do not inform third parties of the outcome of that process.
Thereafter, your concern and their response will be reviewed by a case officer and/or referred to the Professional Standards Committee.
The decision of the case officer or the Professional Standards Committee is final.
Requests for Review by a Third Party, with all relevant evidence, should be sent to Conduct@ncps.com.
Exceptions: Serious Cases
If you can provide evidence of:
- A serious risk to the public or the student body
- Criminal activity
- Discrimination based on Protected Characteristics Imminent risk of financial collapse of the training provider
- Any other serious matter, at our sole discretion
Then we may accept your evidence and commence an immediate review.
Who to Contact?
The quickest way to contact us is to email conduct@ncps.com.
If you would like to speak to us by phone, please use our calendar booking system for a phone call by clicking here.
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.
