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 · Foundation
Ethics and Professional Foundations
The ethical frameworks, boundaries, confidentiality and record-keeping every practitioner must own.
Clinical skill keeps clients safe inside sessions; professional discipline keeps them safe everywhere else. Ethics, boundaries, confidentiality and records are not administrative extras but the load-bearing structure of trustworthy practice, and every practitioner must own them personally. This course teaches that structure from the ground up.
The first module teaches the shared ethical core that underlies the BACP, UKCP, HCPC and BPS frameworks alike, the principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice and fidelity, and how to reason with them when they collide, then turns to boundaries as the protective frame: time, place, money, touch, self-disclosure and dual relationships, with the drift patterns that precede most serious breaches. The second module covers confidentiality and its real limits, consent as a process rather than a signature, and record-keeping that serves the client, the clinician and the law at once, UK GDPR included.
Full written lessons with key points and practice tasks drawn from realistic dilemmas, with a built-in study tutor throughout. Six hours of CPD, around six months of access, a final assessment, and a personalised certificate on passing. Foundational for trainees; a rigorous refresher for everyone else.
▶ 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 Foundation course in the professional practice pathway. It assumes nothing: it is written for someone meeting the approach for the first time. What it adds is the working model, its vocabulary and its evidence base, so that the Practitioner course can assume them; it revisits the foundations only as far as it needs to before building on them, so it does not repeat the course below.
The professional practice pathway. Ethics and professional foundations, supervision and reflective practice, then complexity, risk and the law at Advanced.
6 study hours6 CPD hours certified6 months of accessAI tutor in every lessonCertificate on completion (pass mark 70%)
What you will be able to do
✓Apply the BACP Ethical Framework's principles and values to everyday clinical decisions
✓Explain confidentiality, its limits, and how to discuss both with clients
✓Operate informed consent and contracting as ongoing practices, not paperwork
✓Recognise and manage dual relationships, gifts, touch and self-disclosure boundaries
✓Meet record-keeping and data protection duties under UK GDPR in clinical work
✓Use supervision, and know what it is for at this stage of practice
What you will study
Module 1: Principles and boundaries
The shared ethical core, and the frame that protects.
Boundaries: the protective frameBoundaries make intimacy safe; they protect client and work
Ethical Decision‑Making in Practice: Applying Structured Models to Boundary DilemmasEthical decision‑making models provide a systematic, transparent process for resolving dilemmas, linking values to concrete actions.
Supervision, Consultation and Accountability: Ethical Safeguards in Professional PracticeSupervision, peer consultation and formal accountability together create a layered safety net that protects both client and therapist.
Module 2: Confidentiality, consent and records
The real limits, real consent, and notes that serve everyone.
Confidentiality and its limitsLimits: serious harm, safeguarding, specific statutes, court orders
Consent and records that serveConsent is an ongoing process across the work
Risk Assessment and Management: Balancing Confidentiality with Duty of CareThe duty of care supersedes confidentiality when there is a risk of imminent harm to the client or others.
Data Protection, Record Retention and Secure Information SharingThe GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018 require explicit, documented consent for processing special category health data in therapy.
Assessing Capacity and Ensuring Valid Consent in Clinical PracticeCapacity must be assessed for each specific decision using the four‑stage MCA test.
What's included
2 modules and 9 lessons
An 8-question final assessment, with a 70% pass mark
A certificate for 6 CPD hours when you pass it
An extended clinical case study with discussion questions
A glossary of key terms
Private notes, a reflection for each module, and a CPD log you can print or save as a PDF
📖 Written lessons with key points and practice tasks◆ Visual teaching diagrams🎥 Video where it helps🎧 Listen-to-this-lesson narration👩⚕️ A full clinical case study🧠 AI tutor in every lesson📄 Full course workbook (PDF) on completion📕 The course book (PDF) while you study, with your name in it
Speak the language: by the end you will use Ethical framework · Autonomy · Beneficence and non-maleficence · Fidelity · Informed consent · Confidentiality · Capacity · Safeguarding · Dual relationship · Supervision and more, precisely.
The evidence base this course draws on
Bond, T. (2015) Standards and Ethics for Counselling in Action. 4th edn. London: SAGE. view source ↗
Hawkins, P. and Shohet, R. (2012) Supervision in the Helping Professions. 4th edn. Maidenhead: Open University Press. view source ↗
Reeves, A. (2015) Working with Risk in Counselling and Psychotherapy. London: SAGE. view source ↗
The comprehensive clinical reference behind much of this training: assessment, formulation and treatment of personality-organised difficulty, written for British practice.
£99.00Non-refundable under the practice’s terms and conditions, as course access starts as soon as payment is confirmed.Secure card payment by Stripe. No account yet? One is created for you from your payment email.
