At Talking Therapies UK, we are passionate about equipping professionals with the knowledge, confidence, and compassion to support mental health across diverse settings. With decades of combined experience in clinical practice, public health leadership, and service transformation, our training programmes are rooted in evidence-based approaches and real-world application.
We specialise in delivering high-impact, trauma-informed mental health training tailored to the needs of health, education, social care, and voluntary sector teams. From safeguarding and suicide prevention to emotional resilience and therapeutic communication, our courses are designed to empower practitioners at every level—whether you’re frontline staff, a strategic commissioner, or part of a multi-agency partnership.
Our facilitators bring many years clinical expertise , and a deep understanding of the social determinants of mental health. We prioritise co-production, reflective practice, and inclusive learning environments that foster curiosity, empathy, and professional growth.
Whether you’re looking to upskill your workforce, embed mental health into your organisational culture, or meet statutory training requirements, we offer flexible delivery formats including in-person workshops, webinars, and bespoke consultancy.
Together, we can build psychologically safe, responsive systems that promote wellbeing, reduce inequalities, and improve outcomes for individuals, families, and communities. Let’s shape the future of mental health—one conversation, one training, one transformation at a time..
Professional Practice, Ethics & Supervision · AdvancedPremium · in-depth
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 in Practice: Capacity, Consent and Best Interests
A premium, in-depth programme on capacity, best interests, planning ahead and liberty for therapists, current to October 2026
This premium programme is a comprehensive, practice-focused course on the Mental Capacity Act 2005 for psychological therapists, counsellors, psychotherapists and allied practitioners in England and Wales. It is written for practitioners who need to know when a person can decide for themselves, how to help them to do so, how decisions are made when they cannot, and where the law's protections and limits lie.
The course is current to October 2026. It teaches the capacity test as the Supreme Court framed it in A Local Authority v JB, the leading cases on best interests, wishes and feelings, and the courts' guidance on capacity for specific decisions such as residence, contact, sexual relations, marriage and social media. It explains the Supreme Court's judgment of 2 June 2026, which replaced the Cheshire West acid test for deprivation of liberty with a multifactorial assessment and recognised valid consent as a distinct concept, together with the Department of Health and Social Care's guidance of June and September 2026. It states clearly that the Liberty Protection Safeguards have not been implemented and that the 2007 Code of Practice remains in force while a revised Code is awaited.
Across six modules and thirty lessons you will study the purpose and principles of the Act and its rights context; framing decisions, conducting assessments and the use or weigh limb; mental disorder, distress and capacity; best interests decision-making, consultation, conflict, restraint and decisions about therapy; lasting powers of attorney, advance decisions and statements, the Court of Protection, deputies and advocacy; young people and parental responsibility; the interface with the Mental Health Act 1983; deprivation of liberty in outline; coercion and the inherent jurisdiction; fluctuating and contested capacity; and recording, liability, research, reform and supervision-level practice.
Every lesson contains a worked clinical example, the common pitfalls in practice and a reflective question, together with key points, a practice task for the week, study activities and further reading. The course includes an extended case study, a glossary and a 25-question assessment with a pass mark of 80 per cent. Every reference has been checked against its publisher, legislation.gov.uk, the National Archives or the issuing body.
The course treats the Act as an instrument of empowerment as well as protection. It is clear throughout about who makes which decisions, about what the law requires of practitioners, and about where therapists contribute most: in supporting people to decide for themselves and in making sure that their wishes, feelings, beliefs and values shape the decisions made for them. It asks you at each stage to check the current position, because this area of law is changing.
▶ See inside the digital classroom1 minute 36 seconds · how a course is laid out, how each lesson is taught, and how the tutor helps
Before you start
This is a premium, in-depth programme: 6 modules and 30 lessons written at Advanced level and beyond, with a worked clinical example, a reflective question and the common pitfalls in every lesson. It assumes that you already practise, or are training to practise, in this field; it does not assume a particular course before it, and it covers its foundations itself before going well beyond them.
34.5 study hours34.5 CPD hours certified12 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 80%)
What you will be able to do
✓Explain the purpose, principles and human rights context of the Mental Capacity Act 2005, including the debate about supported decision-making.
✓Frame a decision, identify the relevant information and conduct a capacity assessment that applies the functional test and the causative nexus correctly.
✓Assess and support capacity to consent to psychological therapy and to information sharing, including for people with cognitive impairments.
✓Make and contribute to best interests decisions that give proper weight to the person's wishes, feelings, beliefs and values and to the views of others.
✓Apply the rules on restraint, least restriction and acts in connection with care, and contribute to reducing restrictive practice.
✓Explain lasting powers of attorney, advance decisions to refuse treatment, advance statements, deputies, the Court of Protection and statutory advocacy.
✓Apply the law to young people aged 16 and 17 and to children under 16, including Gillick competence and the limits of parental responsibility.
✓Distinguish the roles of the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act, and explain deprivation of liberty after the Supreme Court's 2026 judgment.
✓Recognise coercion and undue influence and explain the inherent jurisdiction and the interface with adult safeguarding.
✓Record, govern and audit capacity practice, and keep practice current while the Code of Practice and the safeguards are reformed.
What you will study
Module 1: Foundations: principles, the test and its rights context
Why the MCA matters to therapists, its five principles, the statutory test for capacity as the Supreme Court now frames it, consent to therapy, and the human rights and disability rights debates around capacity law.
Why the Mental Capacity Act matters to therapistsBefor
