Gay rights campaigners are celebrating “a watershed moment” after doctors said so-called “conversion therapy” designed to change sexual orientation was discredited and harmful.

More than two-thirds of doctors at the British Medical Association’s annual meeting in Brighton approved a motion backing a call for the Royal College of Psychiatrists and other mental health standards bodies to reject such treatments and ban their use in their codes of practice.

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UKCP’s Diversity Equalities and Social Responsibility Committee (DESRC) has set up a workgroup to look into start up support groups for psychotherapists from minority communities. We are initially looking at:

Support groups for black and asian therapists and support groups for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender therapists:

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The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety has published the ‘Strategy for the development of psychological therapy services’.  The strategy has the overarching aim of improving the health and social wellbeing of the population of the Northern Ireland by improving access to psychological therapies and by being more responsive to service user’s needs.

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A new community project is being launched in style by Stadium Projects in partnership with New Life City Church and will be based at the City Life Centre in Northumberland Street. COPE stands for Community Outreach Project to Ethnic minorities.

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Northern Ireland Supervisors is a recently formed group of practising supervisors whose initial aims can be summarised as follows:

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• To create a safe and accepting community where supervisors can meet as a group, offering support, challenge and development; keep abreast of Supervision here and in Europe and the USA; to reduce the isolation of practising supervisors; to speak as the voice of good practice; develop an advocating role for the profession of counselling.

Parents Advice Centre launches recruitment campaign for volunteers.

Parents Helpline in L’Derry is currently looking for volunteers to provide telephone and face to face support for people coping with family difficulties.  If you can spare at least three hours per week the organisation will provide free training, ongoing support and a real challenge.

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The mental health charity, Mind, has called for independent statutory regulation to help protect clients of therapy from malpractice, thereby joining the ongoing campaign for regulation by organisations such as BACP. However, while the Government resolves this issue BACP is again urging members of the public who want safe counselling to use its members or those belonging to similarly accountable organisations.

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The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) has launched a new Coaching Division to meet the developing needs of its membership.

The aim of the division is to create a space within BACP, offering support and relevant benefits, for those members who work as coaches in addition to being counsellors and psychotherapists. Its creation follows the recognition that although a number of BACP members work with coaching there are currently no specific supportive structures in place for them within the Association.

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For those of you who provide complementary therapies in addition to psychotherapy services, you may be interested to know of an upcoming conference for service providers and commissioners.

The Macmillan Support & Information Centre is holding a free one day conference on Friday 21st May 2010 aimed at those involved in setting up, commissioning, and delivering  a complementary therapy service for  people with health problems.

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The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) is supporting the launch of the government’s fit note launched this week because it “highlights the need for more workplace counselling to be made available”.

The new fit note replaces the existing sick note, aiming to encourage more employees back to work while calling upon employers to ensure there are relevant support mechanisms in place for this to happen.

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