Strategic Health Authorities have commissioned Higher Education Institutions to deliver the training, which will use the low and high intensity curricula. Existing courses for graduate workers and CBT therapists are being reviewed to ensure they fit the IAPT model.
An audit tool for assessing Cognitive Behavioural Therapy courses and the Cognitive Behavioural component in Clinical Psychology Programmes is being developed by BABCP and BPS. It will be available at the end of summer 2008.
IAPT/ BABCP Course Accreditation
BABCP working in partnership with IAPT have now visited 16 out of the 17 IAPT High Intensity training courses that were established in 2008/09. To visit and accredit such a large number of courses in essentially less than 12 months has been a significant challenge. Nevertheless, courses should be receiving shortly their final accreditation reports for those that were visited early in the cycle during the late spring and early summer. Further reports will be sent out to be checked for factual accuracy in the near future and hopefully finalised by the end of the year, if not before.
Download the Briefing around IAPT/ BABCP Course Accreditation IAPT-BABCP Accreditation Advice
IAPT and the Wider Workforce
Person centred values and psychological awareness are being factored into local training strategy and implementation plans to raise the psychological awareness and person-centred values among primary and secondary care staff. The 10 Essential Shared Capabilities is a useful starting place for this work; new guidance on what is required for those who work at Step 1 in primary care and in local communities is also expected.
Accreditation by Professional and Regulatory Bodies
Seven professional bodies are engaged in a significant piece of work preparing a system of accreditation for the IAPT workforce. They are:
- Health Professions Council (HPC)
- British Psychological Society (BPS)
- British Association for Behavioural Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP)
- British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)
- United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP)
- British Psychoanalytic Council (BPC)
- British Accreditation Council (BAC)
Further Resources for Workforce Development
Workforce redesign underpins the development of new services and these NIMHE Workforce Programme resources may be useful: