Iacp Supports Appointment Of Counselling And Psychotherapy Board

national | elections / politics | press release Wednesday March 06, 2019 12:22 by Hugh O'Donoghue - Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy hugh at iacp dot ie 012147933

The Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy welcomes the creation of registration board and future regulation.

Ireland's Largest Association for the counselling and psychotherapy professions welcomes the announcement of the registration board for the regulation of their practices.

The IACP is very happy to report that Minister for Health Simon Harris TD recently announced the appointment of 13 the Counsellors and Psychotherapists Registration Board, under the Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005. These appointments took effect on the 25th of February 2019. The Board will endeavour to safeguard the public by upholding standards of education, conduct, training and competence in the counselling and psychotherapy professions. The Board will also advise the Minister on the protection of professional titles.

CORU (The Health and Social Care Professionals Council) is responsible for arranging the inaugural meeting of the Board which is due to take place shortly.

IACP CEO Lisa Molloy states, “We look forward to working collaboratively with the Registration board to ensure that regulation is straightforward and consistent for both practitioners and the public. We anticipate playing an active role in discussions in order to fulfil our objectives of improving standards and public protection within the Counselling and Psychotherapy professions.”

The Board will commence working on the initial structure necessary before it is situated to open the register. The creation of this structure is estimated to take up to two years.

After this period, there will be an intervening window that will allow practitioners to register. Practitioners who do not meet the requisite level will be unable to register with CORU.

The use of the protected titles such as ‘counsellor’ or ‘psychotherapist’ by an unregistered person will be an offence that will be prosecuted by a class A fine or imprisonment of up to six months.

“As the leading and largest professional body for Counselling and Psychotherapy in Ireland the IACP welcomes the establishment of the Registration board and are pleased to be in a position to inform the work of the board in establishing the Registers and improving public protection”, says IACP Chair Ray Henry.