All ACC registered counsellors comply with our standards and adhere to our ethics and practice. If you are looking to see if a particular counsellor is registered with us, please use Check ACC register.
ACC’s registered and accredited counsellors/psychotherapists are recognised within the professional counselling/psychotherapy world as having achieved the appropriate education, skill, and knowledge to be able to practice safely in all settings. Our levels of membership map to the Scope of Practice and Education (SCoPEd) competency framework developed by six Professional Standards Authority accredited bodies, including ACC, BACP, and UKCP which represent over 75,000 counsellors and psychotherapists. ACC members are employed in the same way as other professional counsellors/psychotherapists, for example, the NHS, schools and universities, prisons, employee assistance services and private counselling/psychotherapy services. ACC members’ unique value is ensuring that clients have choice in selecting a counsellor or psychotherapist who shares, values and respects religious faith and spirituality. Importantly, ACC members work with people of all faiths and none, without discrimination, and within a code of ethics and practice.
As an example of the value of providing a service that is open to all, delivered by counsellors who are Christian, NHS England and NHS Improvement commissioned ACC to provide a counselling service to their employees between 2021 and 2023.
We are committed to promoting quality pastoral care through our training resources which enable:
Each resource is interactive, raising questions, encouraging the sharing of experience, embracing discussion, developing skills where appropriate and using scripture and prayer.
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Qualifying training
If you are hoping to qualify as a counsellor, or progress in the profession, we have a directory of courses run by organisations affiliated with ACC at all levels. Visit our Find a training course.
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) with ACC
Throughout the year we offer relevant, enriching and affordable CPD training to support your continuing professional development as a counsellor/psychotherapist. We invite trusted and experienced trainers to deliver high quality teaching in-person and online. If you are an ACC member, you will receive regular emails about any upcoming ACC training as well as training delivered by members or associates, and free members-only forums.
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This two-session course is designed to equip pastoral carers to support their own holistic wellbeing. Supporting wellbeing is essential for pastoral carers as it protects carers from overload, compassion fatigue and burnout. As such, it also supports the ministry of pastoral care to be safe and sustainable for both the pastoral carer and those being cared for.
This training session is aimed at potential and current pastoral team leaders and church leaders seeking practical information to assist them in setting up and running a pastoral team within a church context.
This 6-session course is designed as a follow-on
training course to ACC’s ‘Foundations in Pastoral Care’. It is best suited
to experienced pastoral carers who are actively involved in pastoral
care ministry and who routinely encounter a wide range of pastoral
care needs.
Students enter final year of landmark psychotherapeutic training
A recent article in The Guardian “All psychotherapists in England must be regulated, experts say, after abuse claims rise” (read article here), raised the issue of the dangers of psychotherapists not being regulated and that MPs would consider lobbying the government to revisit statutory regulation of psychotherapy and counselling. The MPs concern seems to arise from reports of a rise in lawsuits by patients for alleged harm done during therapy.
ACC has joined other leading mental health organisations to form a coalition calling for more support to protect the UK’s mental health in the face of climate change.
