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Health Education England funding to improve equity of access and inclusion for Black, Asian and minority ethnic entrants and financially disadvantaged candidates to child and adolescent psychotherapy training

HEE has provided funding to the bpf, and other ACP recognised training schools, in order to improve equity of access and inclusion to child and adolescent psychotherapy training programmes. The aim is to improve access and opportunities for our BAME and financially disadvantaged students. This funding has been agreed for this year only and the money has to be allocated by the end of March. Requests for this bursary must therefore be received by 10^th March 2021.

CAPT is a graduate entry profession and applicants must have completed a recognised pre-clinical course which includes extended psychoanalytic infant observations, work discussion seminars, psychoanalytic theory and child development lectures. It is also recommended that all students undertake a year of personal psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic psychotherapy prior to application to the clinical training. It is therefore an important element of the pre-clinical experience but one where those from financially disadvantaged backgrounds would be further disadvantaged if they were not able to access personal psychoanalysis. We are therefore proposing that, in addition to course fees, a proportion of the bursary funding is used to support students, who meet the criteria, to access psychoanalysis.

The bursary scheme will be targeted at pre-clinical students who meet the following criteria:

1. express an intention to continue on to clinical training

2. have necessary residency status for future employment by Trusts (because the aim of the bursary scheme is to increase the number and diversity of people eligible to apply for the HEE funded clinical training in CAPT)

There are two groups of students to whom this may apply:

1. Those who are currently enrolled on one of the recognised pre-clinical courses who, for reasons of financial disadvantage, may be struggling to pay course fees and therefore may not be able to complete the pre-clinical course. These students might be in year 1 or 2 of the course so would require either 1 or 2 year’s course fees to be funded.

2. Those who are currently applying to commence the course in September 2021 and who meet the criteria for receiving support. These individuals would require 2 year’s course fees to be funded.

The bpf is committed to promoting access to its trainings and will consider each application on its merits. Applications will be judged by an internal bpf panel and their decision is final. Decisions are based on the quality of the application form, there is no interview process.  Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks of the application deadline. Applicants are invited to complete an application form (including a separate financial information) and provide 2 referees

Successful applicants will be notified within two weeks of the application deadline and awarded the funds soon after. We ask successful candidates to give us annual update reports in their run up to making an application for the clinical programme so that they keep in touch with us and are often supported by our IPCAPA Pre-Training Co-ordinator to ensure they are ready to make an application.

Anyone wishing to apply for this financial help will need to be already engaged on, or be ready to begin, a relevant pre-clinical course that fulfils most of the ACP’s prerequisites for training and be intending to apply for the IPCAPA training within 2 years of receiving the bursary.