TASC Update January 2026

Happy New Year and greetings to you all from the members of the UKATA Training and Accreditation Standards Committee. We have a couple of updates for you regarding training and UKCP registration:

Change to the process of applying for Variances and Equivalency decisions

Where students experience extenuating circumstances that might interrupt their achievement of the expected training requirements, they have up to now, been asked to write to TASC explaining these and asking for a variance from the usual rules, or specifically, a decision on whether they can work with a non-UKCP registered Psychotherapist to achieve their personal therapy hours. This is called the Variance and Equivalency process.

An example might be a student who takes maternity leave, interrupting their expected achievement of forty or more hours of personal therapy in a specific twelve-month period. They might be offered a variance to allow the therapy hours achieved before and after a maternity period to count as a ‘twelve-month period’ for the purposes of their eventual application for UKCP registration.

As of 1 January 2026, TASC has delegated the consideration of these matters to the Registered Training Establishments where students attend. Students who wish for a variance or a matter of therapist equivalence to be considered should now write to their RTE. The RTE will apply a commonly agreed set of principles when considering these requests. Where a request falls outside these agreed principles, the matter will be forwarded by the RTE to be considered by TASC.

Please direct any questions you have about this change to us at: tasc-enquiries@uka4ta.co.uk.

Update to the UKCP HIPC requirements and guidance on Mental Health Familiarisation

The Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapy College (HIPC) of UKCP has updated its guidance and requirements for student’s Mental Health Familiarisation. We encourage any students (and supervisors of students) who are working towards UKCP registration to review the updated document and discuss it together. The updated document can be found at in the UKATA TA Training Handbook here at 10.1B.

Thank you and best wishes from us all on the UKATA Training Accreditation and Standards Committee.

Beren Aldridge, Deborah Blagden, Mary Dees, Bev Gibbons, Rosalind Sharples.