A Strategy for the Development of Psychological Therapy ServicesSkills for Health welcomes publication by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety (Northern Ireland) of A Strategy for the Development of Psychological Therapy Services. We welcome in particular the recognition that a skilled and competent health and social care workforce will be key to the future development of psychological therapy services across Northern Ireland. Delivering this skilled workforce will require new ways of working, the redesign and extension of existing roles and the development of new roles with the ability to work across settings to provide personalised care for service users. Skills for Health, as part of a project funded by the Department of Health and the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, has worked with the four UK Health Departments to develop a suite of National Occupational Standards for psychotherapy and counselling. Covering just four of the many therapies available these NOS offer partial descriptions of; Cognitive and Behavioural Therapy (CBT); Psychoanalytic/Psychodynamic Therapy, Family and Systemic Therapy and Humanistic Therapy. Although the standards are not mandatory, they are recommended by leading professional bodies for psychotherapy and counselling as a valuable resource for practitioners, employers and training providers. The Standards clarify minimum standards of competent practice and provide a challenging agenda for planning and reflecting on personal learning and development. They can also be used to help identify gaps in learning, and to indicate the outcomes of training and development used to fill these gaps. Employers are able to use the Standards to benchmark and improve employee performance and to support service delivery, while education providers can use the Standards to inform the development of accredited qualifications. The strategy can be downloaded from Further information on the Standards is available here . |
