Apply As A Therapist

Requirements

We are delighted that you are considering applying to join the Network of Emergency Service Therapists (NEST). It’s a wonderful opportunity to support the welfare needs of emergency service personnel throughout the UK and their families.

We expect much of our emergency services, and importantly, the men and women within it, who willingly run towards danger when most of us would run the other way. We ask them to do the things we don’t want to – deal with the violent and criminal, protect the vulnerable, fix the broken and catch the falling. Charities such as Police Care UK, the Fire Fighters Charity and The Ambulance Staff Charity, catches them in a variety of ways, whether through advice, the provision of therapeutic services or financial assistance. We are particularly interested in suitably qualified and accredited individuals who have experience dealing with emergency service personnel.

NEST provides member organisations with a register of therapists who have relevant experience of working with beneficiaries from the emergency services. This will be the first sustainable and collaborative model of treating mental health issues on the UK’s front line.

Feedback from emergency services personnel has highlighted a lack of understanding of the unique working conditions in this sector, which contributes to a reluctance to engage with psychological treatment and reduce successful outcomes.

NEST aims to correct this by establishing a sustainable national network of experienced psychological therapists who can deliver effective and bespoke treatment for emergency responders, delivered through member organisations. Therapists will undergo a due diligence process to ensure they are sufficiently qualified and experienced to deliver the specialist support required by beneficiaries.

Phase 1 – Creating the Register of NEST Therapists

We will seek applications from suitably qualified and experienced therapists to join our register. This process will include checking credentials and associated documentation. Once approved, therapist details will be added to our searchable database.

Phase 2 – Allocating Police Care UK Beneficiaries to NEST Therapists

In Phase 2, Police Care UK will ask NEST to match suitable beneficiaries with NEST therapists, identifying therapy requirements and the number of sessions authorised. When NEST receives a request, it will identify a therapist from its register and check whether they have capacity to accommodate that beneficiary. If so, Police Care UK will then contact the therapist direct to pass on information about the beneficiary and outline how and when contact should be made with Police Care UK (e.g., interim and final reporting, safeguarding issues and payment of invoices). This will include the provision of a ‘user manual’, which will act as a single point of reference for organisational specific issues.

Phase 3 – Other Organisations Accessing the Register of NEST Therapists

Following on from an evaluation of Phase 2, which will include a review of the recruitment and matching processes, which therapists will be invited to participate in, other organisations involved with the emergency services will be invited to become part of the NEST project. At this stage, these organisations will be able to access the register themselves. When they identify a suitable therapist, they will arrange with them for a contract to be agreed between that organisation and the therapist, which will include details of how and when to contact the referring organisation.

Phase 3 will begin when we are confident we can deliver an effective service for both beneficiaries and therapists alike. We expect this to be around six months after the start of Phase 2.

Our Timetable

The establishment of NEST has taken a lot of planning and effort from the partner organisations. Understandably, it will take time to create a pool of therapists of sufficient size to be able to match these to emergency service members who would benefit from a therapeutic approach. Our timetable for this project has three phases.

Applying to Join Nest

The application process is for therapists who work in a private practice setting.  

Please note: applications for NEST are currently paused and will resume shortly. Please check back later or sign up to our newsletter to stay infomed.

To apply to join NEST you will be asked to provide evidence that you meet our criteria for psychological therapists. 

If you practice in more than one modality (e.g. EMRD and CBT) we would suggest you choose the modality which best reflects your practice. Whichever application path you choose, you will be available for all relevant modalities for which you meet NEST’s criteria.

For more information please see our FAQs.

We recognise the need to tailor and individualise practice for each patient. However current evidence and research suggest that the following are some of the therapies which have been shown to be effective for a variety of conditions:  

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)  
Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) 
Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR)  
Cognitive Therapy (CT) 
Exposure Based Therapy for Phobias  
Problem Solving Therapy 
Cognitive Analytical Therapy (CAT) 
Solution Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) 
Motivational Interviewing (MI).

NEST beneficiaries are to receive psychological treatment which is time limited and guided by the supporting evidence and research, thus focusing on supporting acute clinical needs and helping to prevent relapse.

NEST expects psychological therapists to have one or more of the following qualifications, depending on their specialist area(s):

Counsellors / Psychotherapists / CBT practitioners / EMDR practitioners

Psychologists: 

All psychological therapists:  

consent to and provide a clinical supervision reference from their regular supervisor who must be experienced, preferably an accredited supervisor, to verify their training, experience and supervision levels
have clinical supervision/ supervised practice in line with their accrediting / regulatory body 
engaged in continuous professional development in line with their accrediting / regulatory body
abide by the Code of Ethics and Practice of their accrediting / regulatory body
have Professional Liability Insurance – amount up to £1,000,000
provide a copy of an EDBS/PVG certificate within the last 12 months 
provide a copy of Professional Indemnity Insurance certificate 
provide photo(s) of consulting room (if applicable) 
provide ICO Registration details
provide evidence of level 3 safeguarding training within the last 12 months

What can you expect from NEST?

Fees

We understand that rates for therapy vary widely, depending on levels of experience and location, among many other factors. We therefore ask you to identify your specific rate as part of our online application process. This information will be available to member organisations, who can include this factor in deciding whom to match a beneficiary with. 
There is no requirement for therapists to pay to be a part of NEST and NEST does not take any commission from fees paid to therapists.

Continuous Professional Development

A key feature of NEST is the potential for it to become a world leading forum for exchanging current thinking regarding the mental wellbeing of emergency service workers. Regular CPD opportunities will seek to share that combined learning and experience and we hope that NEST therapists will be able to take full advantage of this.

How to apply

Applications to join NEST are completed online.

Please note: applications for NEST are currently paused and will resume shortly. Please check back later or sign up to our newsletter to stay infomed.

The online application should take no more than 20 minutes to complete and will be quicker and easier if you have the following information to hand when completing the form:  

details of your professional qualifications and recent education and training  
information about the therapy types and sub-specialties that you offer

You will also be required to attach a current CV, demonstrating your experience working with members of the emergency services, to the online application.

Once we receive your application, an initial assessment will be made to check that you meet our criteria. If you do, you will be contacted by email and asked to provide additional information and submit copies of documents that support your application (e.g. qualifications, clinical supervision reference from a current clinical supervisor, accreditation documents and insurance certificates). These will be checked and you will then be offered a contract signed on behalf of Police Care UK. Upon receipt of the contract signed by you, we will add you to the NEST register.

We expect the process from start to finish will take approximately 3-4 weeks, although this will be dependent on a number of factors, including the time taken to receive your supporting documents.

Next Steps

Once you have completed and submitted your online application, we will email you to confirm that we have received it.