Aims and Objectives:
TRaCCs is a consortium of university-based Training and Research Counselling Clinics that are based within counselling training programmes in the UK and which offer both training placements to their students and counselling (often free or low cost) to the community. The purpose of TRaCCs is to support research, clinic management and training:
- Research: to develop research collaborations and cross-institutional projects, on the development of clinical data and the creation of large qualitative and quantitative data sets, on knowledge exchange activities and on increased capacity for co-operative bidding and commissioning. Through these activities, the clinic consortium aim is to significantly increase potential for publishable outcomes of international value, impact and reach.
- Clinic management: to share experience of running a training and research clinic and to support other universities to set up training and research clinics. Through these activities, the clinic consortium aim is to improve the clinical effectiveness and practical and financial viability of member clinics for the betterment of local communities, trainee counsellors, counselling trainers and universities.
- Training: A longer-term TRaCCs aim is to leverage the consortium’s combined experience of training clinics to improve counselling training.
History
The consortium was initially conceived and set up by York St John University Communities Centre in 2018-19. Existing governance documentation from YSJU was used as an early basis for the consortium and a Memorandum of Understanding was developed and signed by early founders and members – York St John University, Abertay University, Newman University (now Newman Birmingham University), and University of Salford.
Early contributions from BACP, to support a 2-day operational and strategic planning meeting, provided valuable support in the early development of the consortium. A steering group was formed to support ongoing development. Additional clinics expressed interest in the consortium and Roehampton University clinic, CREST, joined the steering group in 2020 and Sheffield Hallam joined in 2021.
From 2020, regular online meetings were hosted via YSJU (Professor Lynne Gabriel). In 2022, the steering group identified a forward Chair (Professor Naomi Moller) and actions were taken to update governance elements of the consortium. The MoU was updated, and recruitment undertaken to secure an inaugural Advisory Board. In 2021-22, lead UK professional bodies, British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP), joined the steering group.