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PractitionerApplication

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Name:…………………………………………………………….……………

Address:………………………………………………………….………………

Telephone at which you may be contacted:

Home:…………………. Work………………..…. Mobile…………………….

e-mail………………………………………………………………………………….

Age:………Date of Birth………………………………….

Occupation:…………………………..……………Tick Gender

Skills offered:…………….……………………………………………………

…………………………….……………………………………………………

………………………….………………………………………………………

…………………………….……………………………………………………

Please enclose a CV with your reply if you have not already supplied one.

We will require sight of originals of qualifications and a copy of documentation of membership of professional body, where relevant to the position applied for. Please bring these to interview

When complete, please return to:

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Help! Counselling for 9 to 25 year olds (South West ) Ltd is a charitable company limited by guarantee. No 4294790. Registered Charity No 1103888

Counsellor/Psychotherapist Induction Record

This organisation exists for the benefit and assistance of children. It is to be expected that anyone wishing to help the charity in it’s aims will value and respect young people and wish to avoid any risk of harm to those who come looking for help.

This undersigned acknowledges that:

I have received a copy of the Memorandum and Heads of Understanding between Help! Counselling and those individuals joining the counselling team in the organisation and understand this s the framework for my relationship and role with Help! Counselling..

I have received a copy of HELP!’s statement of Mission and Values and subscribe to the principles contained in that document.

I have received a copy of HELP!’s Statement of Ethical Practice and agree to work to the Framework of Ethical Practice of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy.

I have received a copy of HELP!’s Equal Opportunity Policy and Code of Practice, and agree to support the implementation of the policy in the organisation.

I have received a copy of HELP!’s Data Protection: Code of Good Practice for Counsellors and agree to work to this code.

I have received a copy of HELP!’s Child Protection: Policy and Procedures and agree to work to the policy and procedures.

I have read and accept the Guidelines for Practitioners documents.

Should at any time I become aware that I have not maintained these commitments I will inform my supervisor and the Counselling Coordinator.

Signed:……………………………………………Date:………………………………

Witnessed:………………….……………………..Date………………………………

On behalf of HELP! (Bristol) Ltd

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Help! Counselling for 9 to 25 year olds (South West ) Ltd is a charitable company limited by guarantee. No 4294790. Registered Charity No 1103888

Memorandum and Heads of Understanding

Between Help! Counselling and those individuals joining the counselling team in the organisation.

The trustees of Help! Counselling (the organisation) are committed to providing a therapeutic counselling service (the service) to young people between the ages of 9 and 25 (the clients).
To this end the officers of the organisation will seek to provide suitable premises for the provision of the service.
The officers will provide for public liability and professional indemnity insurance for counselling activity.
The officers will ensure that professional clinical supervision is provided.
Those wishing to provide counselling and/or psychotherapy skills to the organisation (practitioners) will accept professional responsibility for their practice under the terms of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) ethical framework and/or the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) Code of Ethics.
To this end they will have personal membership of either BACP, UKCP,
Other professional associations may be considered by the organisation’s supervisors. As a minimum, a supervisor and the Director must agree to any alternative.
Practitioners will provide documentary evidence of ongoing membership of their professional organisation, at the time of recruitment and on annual renewal.
The organisation will provide:
A minimum of one and a half hours one-to-one supervision, or equivalent group supervision to BACP requirements per month, for BACP members.
A minimum of one and a half hours supervision, one to one or group equivalent and thereafter one hour supervision per six client hours for the first 450 hours of client work, to UKCP requirements, for UKCP members.
Each practitioner will be required to pay £20 per session to their supervisor as a contribution to the costs.
In addition to these arrangements:
An additional half hour will be provided to placement trainees, for the first 50 sessions. They must arrange twice-monthly contact with their supervisor. Individuals may contract independently with their supervisor on the form of the second contact; e.g. face-to-face or telephone. Additional contact time may also be requested by qualified practitioners when they have a challenging case.
Emergency contact is in addition to these arrangements.

If the particular supervision needs of a practitioner are not met by the organisation’s supervisors, the organisation will, at its discretion, usually finance the supervision needed up to the cost that would be incurred by using its own supervisors as described above.
If in training, that is, with less training or experience than equivalent to a Diploma or Foundation Degree in counselling, a prospective practitioner will provide the organisation with a written statement from their trainer that they are considered competent to work with clients on a training placement.
Each practitioner is responsible, under the conditions for ethical practice, for ensuring that they receive sufficient and appropriate supervision.
Because of the age range of our client group we will only invest in developing practitioners who have an interest in working with young clients. The majority of placement applications are from people on courses focussed on working with adults. We will support them in achieving the client hours with clients over 16 (or 18) as required by their course but we also require them to accept at least one younger client in their client load and we will provide the supervision support and appropriate additional skills and knowledge to develop competency with younger clients.
Practitioners are required to provide the information necessary to obtain a DSB check.
The DBS people are now charging us £52 for a check for students on a counselling course, not the £12 that gets charged for 'volunteers'. Counselling students require the hours to get their qualification, so they are 'students' not 'volunteers'. TA students, who complete a training, then collect hours, then take an exam to obtain professional statusarevolunteers by DBS rules. So we will pay the £12 for each volunteer for Help!, but the counselling students must cover the additional £40 cost that we incur.
Every practitioner will sign a commitment to work within our Equal Opportunities, Data Protection and Child Protection policies and is expected to take all reasonable care to maintain their safety and that of clients.
Should the practitioner wish to use premises other than those provided by the organisation, this must be agreed by the supervisor and the Director. Normally a visit by an officer of the organisation will be required to confirm the suitability of the premises.
Any complaint to a practitioner from a client, or carer of a child client (under 18) that is not resolved within the session must be reported to and discussed with their supervisor at the earliest opportunity.
We provide a training element in our supervision, and access to an introduction to Transactional Analysis (TA101), to facilitate trainees on courses designed for working with adult clients to develop the skills to work with 9 to 18 year olds. Because of the issues involved in working with young people and the vulnerability of many of these clients, supervision of this work must remain with the organisation. These clients must not be discussed with outside organisations without the prior written approval of the Director. Work with adult clients may be presented within the training organisation subject to the usual safeguards on confidentiality and the recognition that clinical responsibility rests with Help!.
Practitioners are expected to contribute £20 per month to their supervision costs. The payment should usually be made directly to the (principle) supervisor. Exceptions must be agreed by the Director.

We offer a confidential therapeutic counselling service. We will not contract with a client for sessions when there is a positive intention to use session notes to support legal proceedings or if there any other positive intent that the sessions should not be either therapeutic, that is, focussed on change, or private and confidential, in that there is no prior intent to share information concerning the content or process of the sessions. We will resist any client’s attempts to breach confidentiality retrospectively.
We are a self-funding organisation. We depend on the money received from clients to pay the overhead costs of the organisation. To be financially viable we need the average amount received by the counsellors to cover the cost of providing the sessions.
This requires that each counsellor be willing to take four clients. Particularly with trainees we endeavour to increase the client load over a number of months, but this is at cost to the organisation and the counsellor must commit to eventually taking four clients.
This client load should allow the counsellor to achieve 150 sessions in a year, which is the requirement for BACP accreditation. It is our expectation that counsellors looking to obtain experience towards their qualification will continue to gain further hours and further experience with the organisation.

Practitioners will receive referrals by telephone or e-mail from the Case Manager. They will be provided with, as a minimum, the client’s name, contact telephone number(s) and the presenting issue as stated by the client on our intake forms.
The practitioner will endeavour to make contact with the client within 48 hours of accepting the referral. The initial contact call is solely to agree a time and place for the first session.
The client will have declared the amount that they intend to pay on the intake form. As the payment is to cover our costs, and the costs are incurred on all sessions, the client has been informed that we expect a payment for all sessions, including the first.
A session cancelled with less than twenty four hours’ notice should be charged at half the usual payment. A session not attended should be charged at the usual payment. The counsellor may use their discretion over cancelled sessions, for instance when sickness or genuine responsibilities are involved. Particularly with trainees, the use of such discretion should be considered in supervision.
Practitioners will use the Client Attendance Record forms to record both attendance and payments. A copy should be given to the supervisor and a copy, together with payments received, given to the Finance Administrator each month. Delays cause problems in accounting and in governance, so the requirement for regular presentation of records and payments is emphasised.

The contract for therapy ends when the client decides not to continue, the client has met their objectives and is satisfied, the client has achieved a degree of wellbeing that satisfies them, the supervisor advises the practitioner that they are working too far out of their competence for the supervisor to continue to support them, where the supervisor or other officers of the organisation doubt that the practitioner is currently fit to practice.
The practitioner will usually offer at least one session dedicated to an ending, so that the therapeutic process and gains made can be reviewed, the meaning and significance of endings in the client’s life can be explored and the counsellor can experience closure with that client.
If a client applies for further sessions at a later date they may ask to see the same practitioner, and they should usually be made aware of this option.
When a client completes their contract the practitioner will supply the client with a Client Feedback Questionnaire and also complete a Counsellor Return Report.
Recordings.
Students are usually required to provide a recording of their work for their oral exam. We permit the use of recordings made with Help! clients providing that the supervisor or Director has heard that client give permission on a recording.
We recommend that students advise their clients: that a recording will be chosen for the purpose of demonstrating their work; that the client will be anonymous, and that the practitioner wishes to have their permission to use an excerpt from one of their sessions if it should be identified as suitable. The client not knowing whether or not their recording will be used avoids the possible transference reactions to being “the special client” or the “exposed client”.
If the course administrators require a written confirmation the supervisor or Director will provide that. We do not wish to have the documentation of organisations that our client is not contracted to entering into sessions.
We consider it an ethical requirement that supervisors should be able to hear some of the student’s work. Feedback from an experienced counsellor to a beginner counsellor can be very valuable in developing an effective style.
For these reasons we support and encourage the practitioner’s use of recordings with all clients.
When working with children (under 16) and young people (under 18) we are vulnerable to challenges from ‘bystanders’ – adults having an interest in the therapeutic work. There is also the risk of a child under stress making a malicious or unfounded accusation. These risks are referred to in our Child protection document and are evidenced in BACP recommending that practitioners have double the insurance cover recommended for working with adult clients. To protect both the practitioner and the organisation we require all sessions with under 18s to be recorded, and we indicate on our contract forms that we will use recordings and session notes to defend ourselves, if necessary. The aim is to deter people from making such accusations.

The recording is a digital date file and is stores and protected in just the same way as any other file, such as client notes. We strongly recommend that all confidential files are stored on a removable drive that can be locked away , is not on the computer when others use it or when the computer is connected to the internet, and does not normally leave the premises where the practitioner works.
The time for which a recording is kept is not specified. Considering the purpose for which a recording is made we suggest that they are deleted upon achieving the qualification, three months after completing work with the client, or (for long-term work by accredited/registered practitioners) after six months.
Some clients may request to make recordings and this should normally be accommodated on the understanding that the contract for privacy is mutual and that only the client (and possibly a named partner) will listen to the recordings and that they are to facilitate personal reflection on the current session.

Help! Counselling for 9 to 25 year olds (South West ) Ltd is a charitable company limited by guarantee. No 4294790. Registered Charity No 1103888

Our Charitable Aims

To relieve young people, up to the age of 25 in the City of Bristol and surrounding areas (hereinafter called the area of benefit) who are in need by reason of mental or physical illness, emotional distress or behavioural difficulties by the provision of a therapeutic counselling service with the object of promoting their mental health and general well-being.

To advance the education of the public in the area of benefit in relation to the part that counselling can play generally and in particular to meet the needs of those young people where development and participation in society is impaired by mental, physical or social handicap or disability

To advance the education of young persons studying counselling and psychotherapy in the area of benefit by the provision of financial assistance to enable them to complete their education in those subjects.

To advance the education of counsellors and therapists working with the charity by providing access to training for ongoing professional development.

To advance the education of counsellors and therapists working with young people in the area of benefit by providing training, with the purpose of raising the standards of counselling for the benefit of the public in general but in particular young people who receive counselling

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Our VISION AND VALUES

OUR MISSION

To provide a quality service of support, counselling and therapy to young people between the ages of nine and twenty five years old.

OUR VISION

Helping young people to free themselves from the limitations, pain, and confusion of their past and present.
Helping them to respond as fully as they can to the opportunities for their future.

OUR VALUES

Every Human Being Has Value And The Right To Respect

We seek to understand and to help people - not to judge people.

We strive for open and honest communication.

We value our staff and volunteers, hereafter referred to as Associates, for their commitment, contribution, skill and enthusiasm.
We will enable Associates to manage their self - development and growth in a caring supportive environment that promotes creativity, innovation and fun.
We are committed to quality and client satisfaction within the Principles for Ethical Practice of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
We endeavour to operate with one common understanding of our priorities.
We respect individualism within the context of team work.
We will invest in skills needed to deliver a quality service, within the constraints of our resources.
We are respectful and fair and are committed to ensuring that our Equal Opportunity Policy is adhered to.

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Statement of Ethical Practice

HELP! (Bristol) Ltd subscribes to the principles of ethical practice advanced by The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. The following texts are taken from the “Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy.