EDI Statement

Our Commitment

Counselling & psychotherapy only works when you feel valued, seen, and accepted. It follows, then, that our community as counsellors & psychotherapists, and the culture that we share, should reflect this. In order to live and work with integrity, our professional spaces should shape and be shaped by the ethos and ethics of the services that we provide.

We are, therefore, developing a new strand to our work at the Society that will help us to build a community where all of our members, and those you support, feel a sense of belonging that is meaningful and consistent, and where people feel seen, valued, and able to be themselves. We hope that your interaction with the Society, and with our profession more broadly, will be steeped in compassion, respect, and the feeling of being heard, irrespective of your skin colour, ethnicity, religion, economic or class background, care experience in childhood, neurological makeup, age, who you love, or how you express your gender, sexuality, or your unique way of being in the world.

We’re proud to proactively support disabled members, colleagues, and applicants through ongoing training for our team, continuous improvements to accessibility, and practical adjustments wherever possible. For example, we offer resources like ReciteMe, an online accessibility tool, and have provided application forms in audio and braille formats for many years. We always work closely with people to understand their specific needs and explore creative ways to support them effectively.

We recognise that there are challenges that exist within counselling & psychotherapy, and as part of this work we will confront these issues openly and proactively, learn from them, and support our community in learning as well.

Our ambition in this is to create an approach that enables us  to review and adapt our ways of working so that we are truly accessible and supportive to everyone we serve.

We hope that those who interact with the Society in whatever manner have a sense of community where everyone participates equally in shaping our collective space. 

This is what we’re hoping to achieve.

Our Next Steps
 

We can’t create the Society we want to create without first understanding what our members, and others who are impacted by our work, need from us. We’re gathering information and working with a range of experts to inform any changes and adaptions that might be helpful, and to help us consider how this work can become an integral, integrated part of the Society: an underpinning of everything we do. 

Progress doesn’t stop, however, just because we’re in the information gathering phase.

We’re ensuring that our platforms, such as our conferences, and our magazine, reflect a broad and diverse range of voices and experiences.

We keep membership costs low and flexible, and applications accessible, meaning there are no barriers to membership for qualified counsellors & psychotherapists.

Our Future

Our hope, our vision, for NCPS is, and has long been, to feel like a professional home, not only for members but also to anyone who might be looking to our profession, such as our clients or the broader mental health community. 

We also want this project to produce  a welcoming hub of valuable resources that our community can use to support their own journeys in this space. 

We invite and encourage you to share your perspective on our work, and to help us shape it. If you’re part of our community, then this work affects you, so please know you’re welcome and encouraged to contribute to it. 

To do so, please email our project lead, Camilla Hyland (hello@ncps.com).

Please bear with us as we thoughtfully and collaboratively develop our work in this area. Your insights and experiences are invaluable, and we look forward to sharing more with you soon.