National recognition for Sheffield counselling service

The University of Sheffield counselling service (UCS) was the first UK university counselling service to have been awarded a service-wide quality assurance accreditation mark by the Accreditation Programme for Psychological Therapy Services (APPTS) – a partnership between the Centre for Quality Improvement at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the British Psychological Society.

The free, confidential service, which is available to all students, was accredited following a rigorous, externally audited process including a self-review workbook with an audit of 56 quality standards, service user and therapist feedback and an on-site peer review involving interviews with service users and staff.

The quality standards look at whether a counselling service is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs, and well led.

Louise Knowles, Head of Sheffield UCS, said:

“At UCS we are committed to continually improving the quality and standard of the service we deliver, balancing this against increasing numbers accessing our service and looking at new and innovative ways of working with the student population.

“This accreditation mark recognises both the extremely short wait times, as well as our talented and clinically robust team who offer a varied range of treatments and interventions in a challenging environment. It is a privilege to be amongst a select few national psychological providers.”