Who are we?
National Counsellors’ Day is brought to you by Counsellors Together UK (CTUK). CTUK is an online group whose main aim is to, ‘work together to end the culture and prevalence of unpaid work within our profession.’
Our story
CTUK – The UK’s largest counsellors’ campaign group
UK Counsellors, also know as Counsellors Together UK (CTUK) started in July 2017 as a Facebook group discussing the expectation that counsellors are often asked to work for free. We quickly began to talk about what we could do to bring an end to unpaid work within our profession. Today, our group comprises over 10,000 members and the discussions which take place every day have influenced the direction of our group, resulting in a focus on the following 3 goals:
1. To challenge the culture and prevalence of unpaid work within the counselling profession. This includes: ending the routine use of qualified counsellors volunteering to deliver counselling services in organisations and agencies across the country. Ensuring counsellors are valued and seen worthy of fair remuneration for their work, and to end the financial hardship and emotional duress suffered by many counsellors who feel they have no choice but to continue to volunteer or work for free, once qualified.
2. To ensure counselling training and ongoing personal and professional development is accessible for all.
3. To encourage organisations to embed the authentic application of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in everyday practice. This includes publicising the challenges that counsellors face, in order to raise awareness; and influence social, political and economic change within the counselling professional, as well as advocating for counselling as a route to emotional and mental well-being in children, young people and adults.
These are the three pillars of our campaign work on which we work with and on behalf of our 10,000+ members.
The actions we intend to take in order to deliver our goals include:
– Conducting research
– Lobbying membership bodies
– Lobbying local and national governmental departments
– Raising public awareness
– Collaborating with other counsellors and counselling organisations.
Why a National Counsellors’ Day?
The UKs first ever National Counsellors’ Day will be held at the University of Lincoln on the 22nd June 2019.
Holding a National Counsellors’ Day helps us to raise the profile of the counselling profession. It helps us to raise awareness of what Counsellors do and will hopefully help us to raise awareness of the ongoing struggles we have surrounding employment and hardship. But crucially, it gives us space to bring together Counsellors from around the UK to discuss important issues around social and political issues and make plans to address these issues. Secondly, it gives us time together to celebrate each other and the often life saving work that we do, a space to lift each other up and support each other as we do so.
How can you help?
You can support National Counsellors’ Day by simply sharing what we do with anyone who you feel may be interested. You can share this website or any of our social media posts. You’ll find us on Facebook here and Twitter here. The more people who know about us the better, so thank you for taking the time to help us reach more people.
Want to know more?
If you are a counsellor, psychotherapist or other related professional and are living in the UK; and you would like to become involved then please do get in touch to find out more. You can email us at enquiries@nationalcounsellorsday.co.uk
If you would like to know more about the specific campaign work we are working on at CTUK the you can read all about this on our website here. All enquiries can be sent to info@ukcounsellors.co.uk
We appreciate the time you have taken to read about our cause and thank you in advance for any support you can offer.
Many thanks
CTUK & National Counsellors’ Day