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PACFA's Advocacy Lands in the National Spotlight

This month The Age reported on new findings from Victoria's Health Complaints Commissioner into sexual misconduct across health providers, and the renewed calls for stronger safeguards to protect clients. The coverage put a national spotlight on an issue PACFA has been raising for years: that in most of Australia, anyone can call themselves a counsellor, regardless of their training, qualifications or background.

Our CEO, Johanna de Wever, was quoted in the article making the case at the heart of our advocacy. The people who end up before a complaints commissioner tend to be those working outside any professional body, with no qualification standard to meet and no accountability to answer to. The problem is not registered practitioners. The problem is a system that lets unqualified people use a trusted title.

This builds on the position we published earlier this year, after a NSW case exposed how easily an unqualified person can present as a counsellor when the title carries no legal protection. As Johanna put it: "When a high-trust profession has no protected title and no mandated qualifications, the public is exposed. Australians deserve to know that the counsellor or psychotherapist they are trusting has met the required standards."

This is where your registration matters. As a PACFA-registered practitioner, you meet a tertiary qualification standard, hold insurance, complete ongoing professional development and clinical supervision, and work within a Code of Ethics and a formal complaints process. That accountability is exactly what protects the people you work with, and it is the standard we are asking government to make the baseline for everyone using these titles.

We will keep carrying this argument into every forum where the future of the profession is being decided. Thank you for being part of a profession that holds itself to that standard.