UKASFP Accreditation

I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been awarded UKASFP accreditation!

It’s been a long, gruelling process involving an investment of time and money, and a lot of failure on the path to eventual success, but ultimately it was worth it; it’s been a valuable experience, and it’s something that I’m sure will make a difference going forwards.

When I was working purely as a mental health nurse, and therefore far more often signposting people towards therapy than providing it myself, the first piece of advice I would give to everyone was to pick a therapist with accreditation.

Accreditation, from the position of the client, means that the therapist they engage with has had their work scrutinized by a professional body to ensure that what they are doing aligns with standards around safety, current evidence based practice, efficacy and ethics. As a registered mental health nurse, my registration provides this reassurance for the public. As a therapist, accreditation acts as a further endorsement covering that specific activity.

When I was considering going into private practice, I spoke with a therapist colleague, who told me they knew several non-accredited therapists who were still highly skilled and successful. This was helpful for me at the time, as I wanted to get going as soon as possible, but knew that it would likely take me at least a year to obtain a reputable accreditation.

There are all sorts of reasons why a therapist might not be accredited, so referring back to my old advice, I would now be inclined to advise finding out what you can about the therapist and their reputation. If they’re not accredited, that shouldn’t be a deal breaker, it just means further investigation into their credentials is wise, and personal recommendations from people you know and trust will be valuable. If they are accredited, that should be reassuring.

In the UK, the BACP and UKCP are the most widely recognised accrediting bodies, but their focus is more on ‘traditional’ approaches, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Integrative Counselling, rather than ‘progressive’ approaches arising from the enactive paradigm* (in fact, the BACP’s website features an article titled ‘What is solution-focused brief therapy?’, which I’m sorry to say I don’t consider to be entirely accurate).

The UKASFP has, I believe, the best accreditation programme available for Solution Focused practitioners. It is solely concerned with endorsing a very high standard of practice which can be accurately described as Solution Focused.

Given that I’ve already enjoyed success in private practice prior to obtaining my accreditation, I can’t help but regard it, from a pragmatic, business-minded point of view at least, as a ‘desirable’ rather than an ‘essential’. However, because this is a hard won endorsement from a selection of the most highly regarded and respected Solution Focused practitioners around, who’s main ambition for the accreditation programme is to ensure integrity in the field of practice, what it has brought me above all is confidence in what I’m doing.

Solution Focused practice is notoriously difficult to do well. Faltering confidence can undermine performance, as it can for any activity (just ask the manager of a football team on a losing streak!). Right now, what my accreditation is doing for me is further boosting my ability to head into every session full of confidence that I am able to conduct the conversation in such a way as to make it more likely than not that the client will experience something profound and life-changing, and when the process becomes difficult, I know I can remain confident that I have the skills to stay on track and deliver high quality, effective therapy.

More information about UKASFP accreditation can be found here: https://ukasfp.site-ym.com/page/Accredbecoming

*To find out more about the ‘enactive paradigm’, I would highly recommend Mark McKergow’s book ‘The Next Generation of Solution Focused Practice: Stretching the World for New Opportunities and Progress’ (2021)