Should employed counsellors provide sessions without extra pay when requested?

[peapodleaf]

I have used AI for the title. I had put 'some people at my work refusing to do this, what do you think?'

I am a counsellor. I have my own business but I also work part-time for a company (a huge, for profit organisation) where my job is to manage cases for other counsellors. I do things like sort their paperwork, approve new cases, deal with requests (such as for more sessions)liaise with companies who pay for the counselling, things like that. Another part of the job is answering calls from new counselling clients, I will assess their suitability and choose a counsellor for them.
Occasionally, we're asked to do the counselling sessions ourselves.

Out of the small team I am in who do the same job, several people have refused to do this when asked, based on the fact that we're on a low wage (I think It's £32K for a full-time employee) whereas a counselling session in this region is anything from £40-80 per hour, sometimes even more. In my private practice, for online I would charge between £45-£60 per session, whereas work offer no extra pay for it.

It's causing a bit of a ruckus, there's a divide between those of us who will and those who won't 'enthusiasm' and 'eagerness' and 'work ethic' have been thrown about by management among other terms.

I am not sure. I haven't been asked to do one for a while and when I have, I have been unable to (the client has wanted sessions on days that I am not available for example) but I am not sure where I stand if I am asked again. What do you think?

I guess in a simple analysis some company pays X amount of money for counselling for person Y. Person Y gets counselled by me who gets paid far less than the X amount. Someone from higher up than me who doesn't care a jot about my qualifications or care sticks the excess money in their pocket and snorts it off the back of a loo in a swanky bar near the headquarters.

You are using your experience within counselling to triage referrals that come in and match them with the appropriate counsellor who is payed on a ad hoc freelance basis by your company.

You are not employed to fulfil the counselling role. If you were you’d have additional pay and your own costs for supervision and also your insurance would cover any liabilities ( as you have been contracted to do the work)

Your company is taking the mickey! Firm no.

Very good example! Albeit not quite the same as we do need to be qualified to do the job. It would be more like me taking a job stacking shelves because I couldn't find anything else or the hours suited and then being asked to counsel other shelf-stackers for the same wage!

Wages in this sector are being eroded by the day , exacerbated by the number of people who do this almost as a hobby rather than a job to support themselves with. It’s disgraceful behaviour by your employer and I would refuse. If you want to use my additional skills, you need to pay for it.

Exactly. And who is really making the difference?!

Everyone else is making their cut but in the past people would contract directly with the counsellor and they would be rewarded for their expertise. Now those business arrangements are being hijacked by organisations who just really have better marketing budgets.

I also don’t like the framework where clients are supposed to be better after six-twelve sessions. But what happens if they have more deep rooted issues and are just cut adrift after opening up to their therapists.

As an accredited BACP psychotherapist I would argue this is a negative for the counsellor in terms of their self worth and would be unethical within an admin role! Especially as it wouldn’t be as hoc you’d have to commit to seeing it through with the client.

However I am intrigued about the company of you could PM me please 😂

I had an open day for a similar sounding role, at the company that you would think of if you think of private health care in the uk. It absolutely took the piss and was shite hours and poor pay for triaging phone calls from potentially very distressed people, but none of it was classed as counselling so didn’t count toward any professional accreditation or similar. As well paid and/ or regular counselling work is like hen’s teeth many people were willing to take anything on offer. I’m not surprised boundaries are pushed once you are in these roles. It sounds extremely unethical op and there’s no way you could argue in a tribunal or similar that a counselling session is an appropriate task for someone employed to do admin, even if they are qualified to do so.

It most definitely feels quite demeaning! Counselling is my 'secondary career' too! And I would now like to get fully out of it if I am honest. It feels a bit like a cult!

I will add to this that I was higher qualified in my original field (postgrad) but did not find success after being made redundant in the recession. I retrained as a counsellor, was very enthusiastic about it! But once in the field and realising how corrupt (and flooded!) it was, I decided not to bother qualifying further. And this is a bit of nail in the coffin fodder really.

Do I understand correctly that you are employed by a company that puts people in touch with self employed counsellors, the company doesn't employ any counsellors themselves?

And they're asking you to do counselling during your usual employed hours?

Are the company even insured and/or have whatever registrations / accreditations /memberships etc they need to for that, never mind you and your colleagues as individuals?!

If you, as someone who is also a self employed counsellor, responded to the request to provide counselling sessions with 'yes, i've got a slot at 12 on Wednesdays, I charge £60ph' then that would be one thing - but I would guess from your posts that wouldn't go down well!

That's it then. They are employing you on administrators' salaries and expecting you to also provide counselling work, which is clearly not 'appropriate to the employee's role and position'. The employer is paying you for admin work and expecting you to provide counselling work without the corresponding much higher level of remuneration.

That's like a qualified accountant working as an administrator and being asked to calculate the business owner's tax liability.

Or somebody in the school office on £1100 a month being told it's their 'duty of service' to come in an hour early, miss their lunch break and stay for 45 minutes after school, plus come in for 2 weeks at Easter in order to provide private instrumental tuition and GCSE Music revision classes for free because she can play guitar 'and teachers do this all the time'.

Yes. It happened. The free teaching didn't, however.

If you are doing counselling work you should be paid at the same rate as a counsellor, not an admin worker. Just because you are qualified is irrelevant, and I think the section you quoted backs that up. I think it could be argued that you might have to take on extra admin tasks, no way does it cover someone in an admin role being obliged to do counselling, even if they are qualified.