Play Therapy UK acknowledges the significant uncertainty and concern that has followed the announcement that the Academy of Play and Child Psychotherapy (APAC), a separate training organisation, has entered liquidation.
We recognise that this development has implications for individuals connected with APAC and that many within our professional community will understandably have questions about what happens next.
During this period, it is important to distinguish between APAC as a training organisation and Play Therapy UK (PTUK) as a professional membership organisation and holder of the Play and Creative Arts Register.
PTUK’s responsibilities include maintaining professional standards, supporting its members, protecting the integrity of the professional register and promoting public protection. These responsibilities remain central to our work.
Protecting What Has Been Built Together
The profession of play and creative arts therapy is much bigger than any one organisation or individual.
Over many years, a substantial professional community has been developed through the commitment of practitioners, supervisors, Course Directors, clinical professionals, researchers and members.
The strength of our profession lies within that collective expertise; within the standards and competencies that underpin professional practice; within the practitioners delivering services every day; and within our shared commitment to the children, young people, adults and families who access therapeutic support.
Periods of organisational change do not remove that expertise, knowledge or professional commitment.
Our responsibility now is to protect it.
Maintaining Professional Standards
PTUK remains focused on maintaining the professional standards associated with the Play and Creative Arts Register and fulfilling our responsibilities as an Accredited Register.
We recognise the importance to members of having confidence in their professional membership, registered titles and the standards that underpin them.
We will continue to place professional standards, ethical practice, clinical governance and public protection at the centre of our decision-making.
Building Organisational Resilience
Significant events also provide an important opportunity for organisations to reflect, learn and strengthen their arrangements for the future.
PTUK is therefore considering how we can further strengthen our governance and organisational resilience, risk management and accountability.
Our intention is to develop arrangements that provide a strong and sustainable way of meeting the Professional Standards Authority’s expectations for governance, accountability, public protection, risk management and organisational resilience.
This work will be informed by professional and clinical expertise and by engagement with appropriate stakeholders.
Where appropriate, PTUK will also engage proactively with the Professional Standards Authority as this work develops.
Supporting the Future of the Profession
We are also actively considering how appropriate future training and professional-development pathways can be supported so that practitioners can continue to develop within the profession and work towards the standards associated with relevant PTUK registered titles.
PTUK’s role is not to become the training organisation. Our responsibility is to establish and uphold professional standards and to ensure that training pathways seeking PTUK recognition and titles on the Play and Creative Arts Register meet the appropriate requirements.
Maintaining this distinction is an important part of protecting the independence and integrity of professional standards.
Communicating With Our Members
We recognise that uncertainty can create understandable anxiety and that, where confirmed information is limited, speculation can quickly fill the gaps.
We therefore encourage members to rely upon information from the organisations directly responsible for the matters concerned and to distinguish between confirmed information and speculation.
PTUK is committed to communicating openly and responsibly. Where we have confirmed information that affects our members, we will share it. Where matters remain under consideration or are the responsibility of another organisation, we will be clear about this rather than speculate.
Looking Forward
This is undoubtedly a period of significant change for our professional community. It is also a moment in which we can collectively consider how best to protect and strengthen the profession for the future.
Leadership may change. Organisations and structures may evolve.
What remains is the professional expertise, clinical knowledge, standards, relationships and community that thousands of people have worked to build.
PTUK’s focus is on protecting those foundations, maintaining public confidence and working with our professional community to create a resilient and sustainable future for play and creative arts therapy.
