BABCP Practice, Supervision and CPD Guidance

Introduction

This guidance is for accredited CBT practitioners in relation to the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak. We expect this to be in place until September 2022. This guidance is about how practitioners can continue to deliver high quality CBT and meet our standards while the public health emergency continues.

• Practitioners and services are expected to follow current NHS and government guidance on appropriate safety, security and health. 
• Duty of care and protection of the public are paramount, and flexibility can be used to support adaptations to methods of delivery of therapy and timeframes, for example. We are not reducing or changing any of our standards.
• We expect that services will support practitioners’ wellbeing in the circumstances, in particular if they are working in isolation or are facing additional challenges as a result of the pandemic.
• We expect that practitioners and services will continue to ensure that diversity and inclusion are considered in all aspects of recruitment, learning, supervision and delivery of therapy, with specific attention to any specific additional impact that the pandemic has on particular groups.
• We are grateful for the input of colleagues in all of the home nations, and their commitment to ensuring quality CBT delivery in difficult circumstances.

Meeting clinical practice, supervision and continuing (re)accreditation requirements

Clinical CBT Practice

Most therapists have been delivering CBT using remote methods, and this is already accepted clinical practice within our current guidelines. It will have no impact on your clinical practice records for accreditation or reaccreditation. 

There is more information here for therapists working remotely.

Where it is not possible to deliver remote therapy, we recognise that there are situations where you may have to reduce or suspend your CBT practice. This may be due to direct impact of the virus as well as changing advice on distancing restrictions.

Our existing accreditation processes already allow for small caseloads and breaks in practice. To meet our expectations for being in current CBT practice, we require a minimum of two clinical contacts per week. CBT must be at least 50% of your psychotherapeutic practice.

If you have less than two clinical contacts per week for a whole month or more, please let us know by completing a Leave of Absence form [Word].

If your reason for absence is due to COVID-19 Coronavirus self-isolation, we don’t ask for additional evidence.

Reaccreditation Declarations while on Leave of Absence

If you are due to complete your Reaccreditation Declaration during a leave of absence, or while not practising, please inform accreditation@babcp.com and let us know when you return to practice. 

Clinical Supervision

Our guidelines on clinical supervision already include receiving supervision via video conferencing, instant messaging, telephone, or by email. There should be face-to-face contact on occasions, and this includes video-conferencing.   

Clinical supervision should be delivered in a way that is appropriate to your clinical practice. For example, if you practice online CBT, then online supervision can be appropriate. 

If you deliver CBT face-to-face, supervision should include face-to-face sessions, and this can be either using video-conferencing or in person where safe and appropriate. In this situation, we expect therapists ad their supervisors to arrange access to face to face sessions. The accreditation team will accept telephone-only clinical supervision where this is essential due to the impact of the pandemic.

Continuing Professional Development

We expect accredited therapists to engage in at least five pieces of CPD across a range of activities every year. This must include at least six hours’ CBT skills, which may be one workshop or several shorter ones. For each activity, you are expected to complete a Reflective Practice Statement [Word]. For events delivered online where a certificate of attendance has not been issued, we accept a completed Reflective Practice Statement as evidence of attendance.

You can use online CBT workshops and events to meet these CPD requirements. During the impact of the pandemic, we accept recorded CPD sessions as well as ‘live’ participation.

Our CPD webinars are available free of charge and all are being housed in the members' area of our website and can be accessed as part of your CPD. You will find our therapist resources hub here.

Our Podcast series ‘Let’s talk about CBT’ may also be accessed as CPD.

You can also see further information about CPD requirements