Certificate in Private Practice with Dr Andrew Reeves
Certificate in Private Practice with Dr Andrew Reeves
6
days12:00pm –
2:00pm12 CPD
hours
Course Brief
How to set up a private practice and to make it a success
This unique Certificate programme aims to provide clear and concise guidance on setting your own private practice for both experienced and newly qualified mental health practitioners. It consists of a series of 6 brief and intensive monthly sessions.
This unique Certificate programme is the first of its kind, offered to you by SDS Seminars in collaboration with Professor Andrew Reeves. It aims to provide clear and concise guidance on setting your own private practice for both experienced and newly qualified mental health practitioners.
It consists of a series of 6 brief and intensive monthly sessions. This series of sessions will be delivered by SDS Seminars with lead facilitation by Andrew Reeves, a major figure in the British Counselling & Psychotherapy scene. A professor, author/editor of 7 books, editor of Counselling journals and past Chair of the BACP, Andrew also has over 25 years of experience in running a counselling private practice.
The series of sessions will run across six two-hour workshops. Each of the sessions will finish with a preparation checklist that will help you to check your own private practice against.
By the end of the six sessions participants will be able to:
Describe the key principles of setting up a private (or independent) practice.
Define what is meant by private practice and how, as a discrete practice context, it sits differently from but alongside other therapy and mental health contexts.
Implement key policy guidance to address the key ethical and legal expectations of private practice.
Develop their own strategy for marketing and communications with potential, current and ex-clients, where appropriate.
Integrate the key principles of ethical practice across all aspects of their work, including reviewing, evaluation and monitoring of practice.
All the course participants will gain FREE access to the regular follow-up meetings that will take place every 6 months in order to support your private work, answer your questions, explore new practice areas and address the challenges of working privately.
Details of the 6 sessions are outlined in the Outline Tab, each with its own 3 learning outcomes.
Who this course is for:
This course is counsellors, psychotherapists and other mental health practitioners who are BOTH just thinking of starting in private practice AND those who are already running it, but want to make sure that you run it in a safe and most effective manner.
About the Tutor:
Andrew Reeves is a major figure in the British Counselling & Psychotherapy scene. A professor, author/editor of 7 books, editor of Counselling journals and past Chair of the BACP. He also has over 25 years of experience in running a counselling private practice and is Series Editor (with Prof Lynne Gabriel) of a new series of books, Ethics in Action.
He knows what it’s like to start up a practice, to make a transition from paid employment, to grapple with the multiple practical, ethical and financial challenges of private practice. He has seen multiple changing trends in the field and has informed opinions as to where “private practice” is going in the future.
He knows that there are increasing number of counsellors and psychotherapists who are moving into private practice – especially following the increasing restrictions on paid employment. Private practice can be a liberating opportunity for self-development for counsellors and psychotherapists, but it also raises challenges for those that are unfamiliar with its unique demands. Isolation, the need for financial planning, marketing plus ethical and legal requirements are just some of the issues facing private practice practitioners. These are either issues you’ve never had to deal with before or alternatively your employer has dealt with for you.
This “bite sized” training course will provide you with all the necessary information and foundations for establishing and running a private practice along with the ongoing support of a community that will also help you stay in touch with new developments.
This course consists of 6 two-hours modules, each run on Zoom 12:00 - 14:00 UK Time
Session 1: 28 January 2025
Session 2: 25 February 2025
Session 3: 25 March 2025
Session 4: 29 April 2025
Session 5: 27 May 2025
Session 6: 24 June 2025
Session One | First Steps into Private Practice - 28 January 2025
This session will provide participants of an overview of what we mean by private practice and how it is different from, but has similarities with, other contexts for counselling and psychotherapy. It is critical when taking these first steps into becoming a private practitioner that a number of key questions are reflected on, e.g., face-to-face or online, or blended. These will be explicitly considered in this session, and will include:
What are my motivations for establishing my own private practice?
What skills, knowledge and abilities do I already possess to make this successful?
What are my key developmental areas to support this endeavour?
What is the scope of my practice, in terms of: client group, presentations, any specialisms?
In addition, the session will also provide participants to create their own professional strategy for the 1st and 2nd years of operation (or the next two years, if already established), as well as a personal development plan, to prioritise acquiring the additional skills needed.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Describe their own existing strengths and areas for development in terms of skills, knowledge and abilities to support running a private practice.
Create their own personal development plan to acquire the additional skills and knowledge needed.
Describe a first, draft strategy for years 1 and 2 of the practice, including any key milestones for review and development.
Session Two | Structuring Best Practice in Action - 25 February 2025
This session will consider the fundamental building blocks of a successful practice to ensure what is delivered is equitable, fair, responsive to inclusivity and diversity and is grounded in ethical decision-making. The session will help participants think about the key aspects of working privately that need to be in place, including key policy or position statements, ICO registration, meeting legal requirements, e.g., around contracting and tax and self-employment requirements. Additionally, it will provide a space to share good practice and ideas around apps and other resources that can support best practice in action.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Describe how they will integrate ethics into their day-to-day decision making to ensure their practice is equitable, fair and inclusive of diverse people and communities.
Understand key policies and position documents that need to be in place, such as safeguarding, risk, contracting and referral process, to support client and practitioner autonomy and safety.
Consider the legal and financial requirements of private practice, including those of Data Protection, income generation, HMRC tax responsibilities and record keeping.
Session Three | Getting the Word Out - 25 March 2025
The danger of any private practice is that it becomes a best-kept secret. The key to success is successful marketing, which demands participants understand the aims and scope of their work, including any focus or specialisms. Creating a website and using social media requires different skills in communication to different audiences. This session will focus on marketing, communications, finding the right ‘voice’ for the practice (including branding) and the successful use of additional mechanisms to promote work, e.g., blogs, vlogs and publishing.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Describe how they intend to, or currently position their practice in terms of aims and scope, and the ‘voice’ and positioning they use in communications to ensure a coherent message.
Describe the range of different platforms for building websites, using social media and client-facing materials to ensure the ‘front door’ of the practice says what it needs to say.
Think about ways in which they may look ‘beyond’ just traditional web and social media mechanisms, considering how different ways of disseminating ideas and practice can further promote their work.
Session Four | Normative, Formative, Restorative and Reflexive - 29 April 2025
Any counselling or psychotherapy practitioner – whether in employment or in private practice – needs to attend to key professional aspects of their work. In private practice there are aspects to this consideration to ensure client and counsellor wellbeing, consistency of practice and a strategy for continuing professional development. This session will specifically look at four key areas: normative (is my practice delivering therapy safely, ethically and professionally); formative (what additional skills do I need to further support and develop my work); restorative (how do I attend to self-care in what can be a lonely practice setting); and reflexive (how to I draw on my own self-understanding to best support my work).
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Be able to understand how the normative, formative and restorative considerations are attended to in day-to-day practice.
Develop a strategy for reflexivity to underpin business and therapy decision-making.
Write a continuing professional development plan to support particular aspects of work and to ensure best use of existing knowledge and financial resources.
Session Five | How Do I know it Works? - 27 May 2025
Supervision is a key aspect of any therapeutic work (as well as being a mandatory requirement of professional bodies). However, as valuable and integral as this is, there are additional ways for practitioners to evaluate their work to ensure it continues to meet client need. This session will consider the opportunities and challenges of using routine outcome measures to inform practice (and professional development), as well as discussing other qualitative measures to capture client experience. Additionally, there will be discussion of capturing wider evaluation across all aspects of the practice, e.g., accessibility of web, social media and other communications.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Describe the importance of ongoing routine evaluation of therapy itself, and broader aspects of the practice.
Consider the relative strengths and limitations of existing quantitative and qualitative tools to undertake evaluation and consider their relevance for their own practice setting.
Describe how the coherence, voice and message of the practice will remain consistent, while also being developed over time, drawing on feedback and evaluation data.
Session Six | Networking and a New Community - 24 June 2025
Private practice offers autonomy and an opportunity to create a counselling or psychotherapy practice that is consistent with your own values, ethics and practice preferences. However, it can also be a lonely context to work in, with fewer opportunities for regular contact with other practitioners, particularly at times of difficulty or challenge, e.g., safeguarding decisions that need more immediate attention. This session will look at the community of private practice, how we can access it and ways in which we might create our own community to support our work. Additionally, there will be an opportunity to talk about how this group of training participants can continue to meet as such a new community of practice.
NB! All the course participants will gain free access to the regular follow-up meetings that will take place every 6 months in order to support your private work, answer your questions, explore new practice areas and address the challenges of working privately.
By the end of this session participants will be able to:
Consider their own needs in relation to working with others what they might routinely need from others in their work
Describe an individual plan of action for connecting with others, including how this existing training group might be an early community of practice.
This Certificate can only be taken in full.
If you've missed the first few modules of the certificate, you still can book it and do these modules as recordings.
All participants of the Certificate will gain FREE access to the regular follow-up meetings that will take place every 6 months in order to support your private work, answer your questions, explore new practice areas and address the challenges of working privately.
Course Tutor
Prof Andrew ReevesProfessor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health at the University of Chester
Andrew is a Professor in Counselling Professions and Mental Health at the University of Chester. He is a BACP Senior Accredited Counsellor/Psychotherapist, an EMCC Senior Accredited Coach and an Accredited Coach Supervisor, and a Registered Social Worker. He has worked in private practice for over 25 years.
A very useful and enjoyable course. This has helped to provide focus on important aspects on setting up in private practice, with thought to ethical practice, wellbeing for both client and counsellor and the necessary business aspects of being self employed.
Covered all my questions and more, it felt an overall very complete course, I can improve my private practice thanks to that.
That I felt I had an excellent starting point where I could methodically review all aspects from my previous practice and without any pressure I would like to add. I have not developed a website as this is not necessary, at this time, but I am excited to do so in the future as a result of attending this course.
I was very pleased with the breadth of topics covered; aspects from technical to strategic, ethical to logistical. I also appreciated the emphasis on encouraging reflection about how each of us personally want to build and develop our own practice, as opposed to being prescriptive or dogmatic about how things should be done. Encouraging planning with SMART goals was helpful in making things real and reminding us that we can all start somewhere and continue to grow and learn with experience. I felt that Andrew Reeves was very generous in sharing his own experience and what he has found helpful, whilst respecting diversity of needs and approaches to private practice. I'm extremely pleased to have been able to participate in this course. It has built confidence by bringing into my awareness a plethora of things to consider from the start of setting out into private practice: it helped me to know what I don't know... yet. So much to think about and it was great to be in the company of people at different stages as private practitioners. Many thanks for this training and support!
