Prompted both by hindsight and by my responsibility for supervising those engaged in the business of teaching counselling, I write in response to a recent Professional Conduct Hearing finding on the subject (Therapy Today, November 2008). Support for new teachers of counselling can, as the findings indicate, be variable.

It may be that college line managers are not familiar or even sympathetic to the way in which counselling courses differ from traditional subjects, both in their demands and their delivery. Competent, experienced counsellors may be attracted towards extending their counselling CV by responding to an invitation to teach on a college-based counselling course. They will not necessarily be aware of the contextual and organisational issues that surround the process of transmitting and enhancing counselling skills and practice in an institutional environment.

The college may, in line with current educational policy, encourage new lecturers to gain practical teaching experience whilst supporting them with appropriate inservice training. Whilst this may be laudable, it still leaves the inexperienced teacher in a vulnerable position. The field in which they are working involves not only pedagogy but a particularly intense management of volatile feelings in a group context where personal development issues may be in tension with the need to complete the course successfully.

I suspect that the admission policy for student entry onto advanced counselling courses sometimes lacks adequate criteria. Instead it may rely too heavily on a subjective assessment which is easily influenced by interpretations of college policies in a managerial climate concerned with the recruitment and retention of students and mindful of inspections.

It is, of course, appropriate for BACP to uphold the best practice of individual practitioners. However, I wonder would it not be equally appropriate for BACP to challenge some institutional practice of the organisation of counselling training? This would be to offer support to vulnerable members who may be working to uphold BACP professional standards in a context where they may be competing with other criteria?