Benefits of student membership

As a student member, you'll have the tools, information and support to help you through your studies. And it's easy to upgrade to individual membership when you have completed your course.

Requirements

From 1 February 2026, we updated our requirements for membership and accreditation to align with the requirements of the聽SCoPEd framework.

If you started your course prior to 1 February 2026, to be eligible for student membership you must currently be attending a counselling or psychotherapy practitioner training course, involving at least one year鈥檚 full time or two year鈥檚 part time classroom based tuition. Your course must also include a supervised placement of at least 100 client contact hours.

If you started your course after 1 February 2026, to be eligible for student membership you must currently be attending a counselling or psychotherapy practitioner training course which is a minimum Level 4 (or equivalent), involving at least two years classroom based tuition (whether full or part time) with a minimum of 300 guided learning or tutor contact hours. Your course must also include a supervised placement of at least 100 client contact hours.

In all cases, at least 70%聽of your tuition must face to face classroom-based, with a maximum of 30% being live synchronous online training. The training must include an integral, supervised, placement of at least 100 client hours, of which the majority need to be delivered face to face. The remaining hours can be delivered online or via a combination of online and phone. To find out more about these changes please see our聽guidance for online teaching delivery and remote supervised placements.

Courses delivered solely online or by distance learning continue to not qualify for membership.

Your placement hours must be:

  • carried out with genuine clients, rather than peers from your course, for example
  • in an appropriate setting with appropriate clients. Counselling services are an ideal setting as they are likely to assess whether clients are suitable for your level of competence. If you're accruing some placement hours remotely, these must be with adults only and in an environment suitable for remote delivery. You should not be required to undertake placement hours through private practice or with client groups that have not been pre-assessed as suitable - such as children and young people or those with complex mental health needs
  • assessed (or marked) as an integral part of your training
  • delivered mostly face to face. The remaining hours can be delivered online or via a combination of online and phone
  • supervised. We recommend a ratio of one hour's supervision to eight hours counselling in the same mode of delivery as your placement hours. We also recommend you see your supervisor fortnightly

Commitments

As a student member of 麻豆原创 you'll be bound by our Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions and our Professional Conduct Procedure. You must read and agree to these as part of your application process.聽

You should also read our 麻豆原创 policies and protocols

Costs

麻豆原创 subscriptions run for a year and are reviewed annually.聽

If you鈥檙e receiving certain state benefits or have no personal income, you may be entitled to a reduction in your fees. See our聽Reduced fee policy.

How to apply

If you're a current or former member of 麻豆原创, or have already submitted an application, you probably don鈥檛 need to complete a new application. Please contact us before you start if you鈥檙e unsure.

Supporting evidence

To support your application, you'll need to provide:

  • supporting evidence from your place of study
  • proof of address
  • proof of any eligibility for reduced fees
  • information and documents to support any disclosures 鈥� see our 麻豆原创 disclosure policy
  • evidence of entitlement to use any academic or honorific titles, such as Dr

If you're taking a training course outside the UK, you must provide a copy of your course handbook or transcript with your application so we can assess the level of training you're having. Any evidence you provide should be translated into English by a certified translator.

Full details are given in the application process.

Online

Our online student application process should only take 10 to 15 minutes to complete. Please make sure you have all your supporting evidence ready to upload.

Application form

If you can鈥檛 use the online process or encounter any problems with it, please contact membership@bacp.co.uk for further assistance.

It may take up to 28 days to process your application as we'll need to complete verification checks.

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