The principles of this policy will apply to all BeeLeaf business, members’ practice and contractors and visitors to BeeLeaf

BeeLeaf is committed to:

  • the provision of equality of opportunity for all its members, students and staff
  • the promotion of inclusivity, diversity and social justice.

The psychotherapeutic modalities of Contemporary Psychotherapy are explicitly committed to promoting a culture that actively values difference and recognises that people from a variety of backgrounds and experience can bring valuable insights to psychotherapy, training in psychotherapy, working environments, practice policy and wider society.

The key considerations are that the individual is able to satisfy the requirements, competencies and codes of practice of their programme of study or of their defined post and that they are supported to do so in appropriate and diverse ways.

The core tenets of Contemporary Psychotherapy promotes co-creation of the conditions for healing, learning and growth. Within the contexts of diversity and inclusion these conditions are cultivated and expressed through ongoing attendance to values such as:

  • The uniqueness of all clients and need for therapy practice to flex appropriately according to different clients’ needs, resources and strengths.
  • Presupposition that people are predominantly motivated towards wellness rather than pathology.
  • Recognition and respect for the inner wisdom and ecology of the client in their management of their life and therapeutic needs.
  • Preservation of dignity of the human being in the face of suffering, struggle and injustice.
  • Explicit intention to recognise and ameliorate the power differentials between client and therapist.
  • Commitment to non-authoritarian engagement with client’s change process and decision-making.
  • Inclusion of theory sources and practices from outside of Western, Eurocentric and Judeo-Christian cultures, such as aboriginal healing principles and practices and Buddhist psychology.

BeeLeaf also recognises the harm done by inequity, marginalisation and discrimination and promotes action to highlight and lessen the impact of these on individuals and groups.

Examples of these endeavours include:

  • Ensuring that all members and their clients will be treated equitably and will not be accorded less favourable treatment because of age; marital/civil partnership status; gender or gender identity; disability; body type; race, ethnic, cultural or national origin; sexual orientation; family circumstances; religious beliefs; socio-economic status or social class.
  • Designing and managing financially accessible services that include brief and outcome oriented therapies which attend to the client’s priorities and functional needs.
  • Valuing and supporting the development of psychotherapeutic work across a range of clinical settings and formats, such as indoor, outdoor, in person and online, to create best accessibility to quality psychotherapy.
  • Amplifying the voices of those who have experienced oppression, discrimination, erasure or unjust exclusion and marginalisation.
  • Making explicit contribution of expertise, professional time and public statements in reparation to LGBTQIA individuals and communities for decades of misguided and oppressive practices by the mental health professions.
  • Providing some financial support for trainees in the form of bursaries, when available, on the bases of merit and need.
  • Providing some reduced-price psychotherapy on the bases of suitability and need.
  • Having flexible, robust and collaborative ways to support the learning and assessment needs of a diversity of trainees, including those with diverse learning patterns.

Training

We confirm our commitment to continue to develop, implement and monitor a programme of equality measures so that unjustifiable barriers to educational and employment opportunities are removed. This will help BeeLeaf to maintain its diverse membership and service to diverse members of the public and to continue to enrich its community, ethos and service through the contribution of multiple perspectives.

We will make reasonable adjustments to create flexible pathways for trainees to demonstrate their measurable competencies, when this is necessary and justified. These adjustments will be in forms which comply with the standards required to measure fitness for practice and academic achievement.

We recognise training and therapeutic processes are influenced by individuals’ experiences of inequity and marginalisation, in the forms of trauma, prejudice, assumption, exclusion, marginalisation, identity conflict and social interface. We will actively design training and therapeutic processes to provide opportunities to include and address the impact of these experiences and patterns, as they are experienced by individuals and groups. We will deliberately critique and encourage critique of theory and practice that historically assumes normativity and erases or otherwise oppresses people who differ from assumed norms.

All training staff and trainee members of BeeLeaf therefore commit to their individual and collective responsibility to develop sensitivity, curiosity, humility and respect towards difference.

BeeLeaf members will respectfully challenge, and be challenged on, dynamics such as assumption, exclusion and discrimination as they might appear in the training process, supervision process and in training materials used on a course of training. Trainees are invited to similarly challenge trainers and supervisors in a spirit of mutual co-operation towards more respectful and authentic professional relationships.

Reasonable adjustments to increase accessibility, will include invitation to applicants and participants to disclose with staff and trainers any special needs or potential barriers to full engagement with training or competent practice. Staff, trainers and members will then discuss and contract for any supportive adjustments from any or all parties to make participation possible.

This process will include risk assessment for the organisation, trainee/member, the public and to other trainee/members. Where someone has a history of chronic and potentially recurring mental health issues, such as addiction or depression, this process will include completing a self-care contract to help articulate and support the needs of the participant/member.

Reasonable adjustments from other members/participants may also be requested but will not be allowed to compromise others’ participation or membership.

From time to time, bursaries become available for participants who are able to demonstrate both need and merit. These will normally be reserved for trainees who have progressed in training to a stage where their own contribution to BeeLeaf or public community is already measurable and articulated. Any expectations of the trainee connected to receipt of such a bursary will be explicitly stated before award.

BeeLeaf membership and resources will be actively steered towards initiatives which promote psychotherapeutic redress to the impact on individuals and society of inequity and towards the promotion of inclusivity and social justice. BeeLeaf commits to challenge the wider psychotherapeutic community where it colludes with or perpetuates exclusion and injustice.

Last Updated March 2022