Legal Issues in Counselling & Psychotherapy

Peter Jenkins is a counsellor, trainer, supervisor and researcher. He has worked as a student and staff counsellor in college and university settings for the past thirty years. During this time, he has developed a particular interest in exploring ethical, professional and legal issues in counselling practice. He has run over two hundred workshops on these topics, aimed at addressing the current concerns of practitioners. He has been a member of both the BACP Professional Conduct Committee and the UKCP Ethics Committee and has published around one hundred articles on law and ethics in the professional counselling press. His publications include Therapy with Children, as co-author with Dr Debbie Daniels (Second edition, Sage, 2010), Counselling, Psychotherapy and the Law (Second edition, Sage 2007), online modules for Counselling Mind-Ed and other training material, such as Counselling Confidentiality and the Law (2013, Counselling DVDs).

Peter has produced a wide range of free resources, which can be downloaded to supplement the material outlined in his recent book, Professional Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy: Ethics and the Law. These resources include a video presentation on key issues in recording therapeutic work with clients and online self-study programmes on legal issues in working with children and young people for MindEd. While his book closely follows the BACP Ethical Framework in terms of discussing the competencies required of counsellors and psychotherapists, he has also developed a critical analysis of the Ethical Framework, and of some of the legal resources designed to underpin it. In addition, the key area of data protection is undergoing change, with the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018. The impact of the GDPR is explored in a further piece, looking at its background and some of the main implications for counsellors.




Video of PPS presentation on 'Records as Evidence'
MindEd Counselling: Legal and Professional Issues, i.e. self-study online programmes on working with young people, in relation to record keeping, safeguarding, ethics and the law


Webinars (access is free for counselling students via https://www.onlinevents.co.uk/library):



Working with Children and Young People: An Ethical and Legal Minefield?
Making Sense of the New Ethical Framework
Supervisors - A New Duty of Care?


Peter can be contacted at peter.jenkins@alumni.manchester.ac.uk