Happy New Year 2022 (here’s what we achieved in 2021!)

We’d like to wish our CTUK members and all of our supporters a very Happy New Year, and to say thank you for everything you’ve done for us throughout 2021. Your support means the world to us and we couldn’t achieve half of what we do without you. Much love to you all ❤️

We usually do a big write up at the end of each year about all the things we’ve achieved but because the last part of this year has been taken up with myself (Maria) being poorly with Covid, admitted to hospital and still recovering, I thought we’d just list the main things we’ve been up to instead. (I’m still quite weak and didn’t have the energy to write a full on report!)

So, the main achievements of 2021 are; (drum roll, please…..)

  • National Counsellors’ Day back in June was a huge success with over 1200 people registering to attend our conference. We also welcomed British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy as a headline sponsor, alongside The National Counselling Society. A huge thanks to all presenters, supporters and sponsors. You can buy previous years recordings via the website here: www.nationalcounsellorsday.co.uk
  • We launched our campaign to promote the Professional Standards Authority (PSA) accredited registers, and welcomed NCS on board to help us. You can download the free resources (poster/leaflets) from our website here: www.ukcounsellors.co.uk/free-resources
  • Thanks to Dr Elizabeth Cotton from Surviving Work we published our first survey, Mapping The Therapeutic Financial Landscape. You can read the results on our website www.ukcounsellors.co.uk
  • We continued our partnership work with PCP Partners for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
  • We raised £10,000 and launched our CTUK Retreats. Fifteen therapists from across the UK attended 3 separate 4 day long sailing retreats with Sea Sanctuary in Cornwall, and another five therapists are due to go sailing in the Spring.
  • Our CTUK Members Club grew. (www.members-ukcounsellors.co.uk)
  • We took part in the PCSR (Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility) conference.
  • We launched #ActivistsTogether (Twitter hour on Friday afternoons discussing activism).
  • We launched our daily reminders series (a post a day to remind organisations to pay their therapists).
  • We re-opened our online shop and are busy adding more stock.
  • I submitted a successful motion asking BACP to repeat their members employment survey.

And that’s just off the top of my head!!

We’ve also continued with our usual daily campaign work alongside this, e.g. responding to, communicating with and challenging individuals and organisations across social media with regards to our aim of ending the culture and prevalence of unpaid work within our profession.

And we continue on average to receive 60,000 interactions per month, and have over 90% engagement across our social media.

So I think it’s safe to say it’s been another busy and productive year here at CTUK.

I’m just working on finalising plans for 2022 and will let everyone know as soon as I’ve done that.

I hope you’re all having a day that is going exactly how you want it to, and I wish you all the very best for 2022 and beyond.

I hope this is YOUR year.

With love, as always, Maria ❤️