Prior preparation prevents audit panic
Reducing stress around your audit: A guide for counsellors
That niggling feeling
Audits. The very word is enough to strike fear into the hearts of even the most organised among us.
Vitally important - after all, they are there to ensure that members are meeting the understandably high standards demanded by the industry’s governing bodies. Every month 1.5% of the renewing members of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) alone undergo a random audit with a six week window to gather the relevant details. Even if you’re rigorously prepared, that pressure can still cause concern!
One of my peers, who had only been fully qualified for six months, was selected for an audit. Bad luck, one could argue, so soon into their journey, but surely not much time to let things get into a pickle?
They found the process very overwhelming, as they hadn’t been collecting the necessary data systematically from the beginning of their practice. A difficult position for the auditor, after all, they cannot assess information that just isn’t there. It was a challenging time, but with support from the BACP and their register team, they got through it and learnt a valuable lesson: Despite our profession being all about people, in today’s process-driven world, data is king.
A smoother solution
Inspired by their experience, I realised the importance of integrating audit requirements into daily practice. Not many people become a counsellor because they have a passion for effective data management, but this is a significant requirement of the role, it’s something that I felt really needed addressing, before someone came unstuck.
The key to a smooth audit is consistently and systematically capturing essential data - client logs, continual professional development (CPD) records, supervision session notes – all information that you have easily to hand at the time, but that can be tricky to lay your hands on a year later. To help with this, I developed the Grounded app, which not only captures all the relevant information fields but also makes these records easily downloadable.
Client logs: Keeping comprehensive client logs is fundamental, with records needing to include session dates, duration, and summary titles. Regularly updating these logs ensures that all client interactions are documented accurately and are readily available for review during an audit.
Continual Professional Development (CPD): There is always something new to learn, and ensuring your CPD activities are logged is important. Whether it be workshops attended, courses completed, webinars taken part in or formal networking events attended, any professional development activities should be noted. By logging these activities as they occur, you can demonstrate your commitment to ongoing learning and adherence to industry governing bodies standards – and keep track of all our own personal achievements, something many of us are not great at!
Supervision Sessions: Accurate records of your supervision sessions, including dates, topics discussed, and insights gained, are essential for demonstrating compliance with BACP's supervision requirements, and your own ongoing personal management. Whilst your supervisor will be keeping track, it is helpful for you to also do so, in order to be able to reflect on your own thoughts during the session.
Harnessing technology
The Grounded app streamlines the data collection process, making it user-friendly, simple and efficient. By entering details throughout the year, practitioners can ensure that all necessary information is captured and organised, allowing you to focus on your clients and professional growth without the added stress of last-minute data collection.
We all know that prior preparation is the key to navigating BACP audits with confidence and ease, but somehow, keeping on top of auditory management can seem tricky, on top of all the other practice management requirements.
By utilising technology to assist with the heavy lifting of systematic data collection, and integrating audit requirements into your daily practice, you can reduce the stress associated with audits, safe in the knowledge that you have a neat, downloadable datasheet to hand to auditors should they come knocking. Logging everything as you go means that should the call come, you can have everything they need downloaded and ready to send in less than ten minutes, in the auditor’s preferred format, with the right data fields completed - no fuss, no muss, no hassle. There’s definitely something to be said for having your audit completed in less time than it takes to make and drink a cup of tea…
Upholding the high standards required by our profession is integral to everything we strive for, and enhancing the delivery of client care is always the end goal. Anything that removes a layer of pressure from the practitioner ultimately provides a better service to our clients, and ourselves – and that’s something we believe is worth pushing for.
