Accreditation

In our work we strictly adhere to the requirements for ethical and professional conduct set by the British Association for the Counselling and Psychotherapy and we are a BACP accredited service. You can visit their website here: www.bacp.co.uk

We are members of the National Counselling Network (NCN), which is an association of BACP or BPC Accredited counselling centres which hold a common aim to offer high quality and professional counselling to their local communities. In addition to being psycho-dynamically oriented, members differentiate themselves from other counselling organisations by:

·     delivering professional, affordable/low-cost counselling

·     being independent third sector providers

·     providing an alternative to the NHS and ensuring that new clients are seen in a relatively short time frame.

NCN members meet, communicate, network and share best practice, particularly in respect of psycho-dynamically led counselling.

Confidentiality

Personal information disclosed to a counsellor is strictly confidential to the professional counselling side of the agency. Contact with a client's GP or psychiatrist is only made with a client's knowledge and permission, except under exceptional circumstances where it is felt that the safety of the client and/or others is at risk (see BACP Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions at www.bacp.co.uk)

Further details of our confidentiality guidelines can be obtained from our Centre.

Equal Opportunities 

Accessibility

SBC is committed to the encouragement of equality and diversity among our clients and workforce with regard to the psychological therapy we provide to the public and in our training of placement counsellors. We are also committed to the elimination of any form of discrimination, including harassment or bullying, on the grounds of gender, marital status, race, ethnic origin, colour, nationality, national origin, disability, sexual orientation, religion and age. Every individual has the right to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect.

Our charitable mission is to provide affordable therapy to adults who seek our help. One of our strategic objectives is to improve access to services for those most in need by tackling barriers such as cost, inequality and stigma and by targeting vulnerable groups.

Despite a culturally diverse demographic in High Wycombe, there has been a lack of ethnically diverse clients applying for counselling. We are sensitive to this issue and our focus is to increase our multicultural reach. Our two-fold approach involves the implementation of our new Counsel360 cloud-based administration system. It will allow us to collect equal opportunities data to better understand the ethnic spread of clients who apply. In addition, we have increased our efforts to become better connected to the NHS and local voluntary sector organisations through regular attendance at networking meetings. As part of this, we were pleased to be invited to take part in a local VCSE Mental Health showcase event (www.lindengate.org.uk), which allowed us to present our work to a wider referral group. We are noticing an increase in applications to our service from Asian and Pakistani communities.

The location and construction of our building (The Cottage) at South Bucks Counselling means that we are unable to accommodate clients who are wheelchair users. Whilst there is no scope to improve this physical access, we have adapted our way of working to offer online or telephone counselling to any client unable to access The Cottage. Clients who are unable to access The Cottage due to caring responsibilities or work patterns can also access counselling services via online/telephone sessions.

It is our intention to provide equally good client experience and outcome for all clients of SBC and to respond to enquiries from the public professionally and fairly, so that all those who can benefit from our help are able to make positive choices.

To this end, we monitor monthly records of new client applications, average fees paid, counselling sessions delivered and client feedback forms and will take action where we can to ensure that our services are accessible to all adults in our local area. Bi-monthly, joint Clinical and Trustee meetings are held as a further way of reviewing progress.

This data will be subject to an annual review, next due in June 2024.