EBPT Minimum Training Standards

Evidence-Based Parent Training (EBPT) Practitioners’ Minimum Training Standards

The BABCP has Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioner Minimum Training Standards. (EBPT-MTS) detailing the minimum level of training, experience and practice that parent training practitioners are required to achieve in order to practice at an agreed standard of competency. These standards are used to assess applicants for Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioner and Evidence-Based Parent Training Course Accreditation by BABCP and are used as standards for registration on the BABCP’s EBPT Register UK.

The standards aim to:
  • Provide individuals seeking training with the core standards they are expected to meet within their overall training in Evidence-Based Parent Training
  • Provide Evidence-Based Parent Training courses with a guide to the training needs which will need to be met by their training programme
  • Provide the Practitioner Accreditation Committee of BABCP with a standard against which to decide if an applicant has received the desired level of training necessary to practice Evidence-Based Parent Training at an agreed standard of competency
  • Provide employers with a benchmark of standards in Evidence-Based Parent Training
1.  Basic requirements
  • EBPT Practitioners will usually have an approved basic professional qualification in an appropriate profession (e.g. psychology, psychiatry, nursing, counselling, occupational therapy, social work, education). They will usually be registered with a professional, regulatory body and will usually have undertaken a minimum period of two years post qualification training and experience.
  • EBPT Practitioners will have experience in working in a therapeutic role with clients.
  • EBPT Practitioners will demonstrate personal qualities that make them suitable for the practice of Evidence-Based Parent Training.
  • EBPT Practitioners will use a Social Learning Theory approach in line with the available evidence base as their main, or one of their main therapeutic models.
2.  Length of training
  • Training, including Basic Professional Training and experience and relevant Evidence-Based Parent Training programme, will usually have been over at least a four-year period.
3.  Theoretical and skills training
  • The period of training will include the acquisition of a critical understanding of the relevance of studies of Human Development, Psychopathology, Psychology, Social context and evidence-based practice.
  • EBPT Practitioners will have covered a minimum curriculum that has provided a broad-based understanding of the theoretical basis of social learning theory and fundamentals of Cognitive and/or Behavioural Therapies and their application for externalising disorders. Parent Training programmes are specialist courses in a specialist area of application, however, the basic conditions of understanding fundamentals of CBT should still be met.
  • Skills training is an essential component of the acquisition of knowledge and experience of Parent Training and should not comprise less than 50% of an EBPT Practitioner’s total training programme.
  • Theoretical knowledge and skills will have been acquired through structured teaching and self-directed The minimum number of hours study required in the Parent Training elements of training is 450 hours of which 200 hours should be provided directly by recognised trainers, with documented expertise in social learning theory and a NICE-recommended Parent Training programme. The training will usually be a Postgraduate course, although could also be a graduate diploma, delivered by a higher education institution. Demonstration of these requirements would normally be required through a mandatory, training log which specifies the length of study, content, number of taught hours and a record of the lecturers, tutors or mentors participating in an Evidence-Based Parenting Practitioner’s training.
  • Where training is received in alternative formats from face to face teaching, the minimum amount of the 200 hours of face-to-face teaching required can be delivered by other media but this should total no more than 20% of the total taught All alternative teaching formats are required to allow either interactive teaching or opportunity for discussion/questioning/exploration and should meet all other EBPT Minimum Training Standards required (i.e. delivered by BABCP accredited practitioner or Incredible Years or Triple P accredited practitioner, or recognised equivalent). Self-directed study i.e. watching a DVD, non-facilitated chat rooms or other material online is not counted here although can be included under the 250 hours of self-directed study required.

Examples of acceptable, alternative teaching formats are:

  1. Skype/video conference teaching
  2. DVD or video teaching which is facilitated by a BABCP EBPT or CBT Accredited practitioner and is accompanied by discussion etc
    • Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioners should achieve the skills to be able to understand and interpret research relevant to the outcome and effectiveness of Evidence-Based Parent Training approaches. This would usually be achieved during the formal study requirements outlined above.
4.  Supervised Clinical Practice
  • Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioners should have conducted a minimum of 100 hours of supervised assessment and face-to-face therapy during training in addition to that specified in 3.4 above. This must include delivering group work and individual therapy with parents and children. For EBPT practitioner accreditation, EBPT practitioners are expected to have completed two groups (with a minimum of six families) and six individual parent training An additional two groups and four individual cases (two cases from a group and two that are not part of a group) must be completed in a 24-month period in order to be eligible for EBPT First Accreditation Audit.
  • All EBPT Practitioners will have received a minimum of 70 hours of face to face individual and/or group supervision during the period of training for both assessment and therapy, carried out by an approved Parent Training clinical supervisor, who is either a Cognitive and/or Behavioural Therapist who meets the BABCP criteria for Practitioner or Supervisor Accreditation, and/or an Incredible Years (or other evidence based parenting approach) accredited practitioner. Where supervision is predominantly carried out in a group format, the opportunity for personal and individual supervision should have been available during training. Supervision will have consisted of regular feedback and discussion of case work on Parent Training. Some of this should be in the form of intensive, close supervision which will have involved the use of live, audio or video materials of the trainee conducting therapy.

Supervision delivered in a non-face to face medium is allowed e.g. by telephone or by video conference. For the former, telephone supervision should not have formed the majority of the supervision hours. However, this should have also met the EBPTP Minimum Training Standards of being delivered by an Accredited BABCP practitioner or recognised equivalent.

  • A minimum of six individual clients; and two completed groups (with a minimum of six families) will have been assessed and treated under supervision using evidence-based Parent Training approaches by the trainee during the period of training before a practitioner is regarded as having completed their training. These cases will cover externalising disorders and a minimum of three cases will have been closely supervised as defined under 4.2. In order to monitor the quality and quantity of this, details of supervised clinical practice and case mix should have been recorded in a mandatory training log.
  • Supervised practice will have been subjected to formal assessment with four case studies written up (approximately 3000 – 4000 words), which meet the academic standards stated by BABCP Accreditation Committee; ‘Criteria for Evaluating Academic Case Studies, 2013’ (available from BABCP). Two of these case studies must relate to individual Parent Training cases; and one case study must be on a Group.

It is possible for two of these case studies to have been presented and examined in an alternative format. For example, some courses may allow trainees to present a ‘live’ case report which is discussed and evaluated as part of a mandatory course assessment. If this is used, the trainee should have accompanied this by written support in order to ensure that the trainee can demonstrate that they are able to accurately reflect their case work in a written form for the purpose of report writing or case note records. This can be in the form of a short summary, detailed PowerPoint presentation etc. it is expected that only two of the case studies would be presented in this alternative format.

5.  Personal Development
  • EBPT Practitioners must have ensured and continue to ensure that they can identify and manage their personal involvement in the process of Evidence-Based Parent Training appropriately.
  • EBPT Practitioners must have developed an ability to recognise when they should seek additional professional advice and supervision.
6.  Assessment of Evidence-Based Parent Training knowledge and competency

There is some flexibility in relation to the EBPT Minimum Training Standards in demonstrating knowledge and competency in addition to those experiences described above. These are as follows:

  • EBPT Practitioners are expected to have demonstrated an understanding of the theoretical aspects of Social Learning Theory; Evidence-Based Parent Training and their application by the production of a formal assessment essay, exam or research project.
  • An understanding of evidence-based practice should have been evaluated using the following:
  1. an extended case report that critically discusses social learning theory/parent training research evidence or,
  2. a relevant research dissertation.
7.  Accreditation of Evidence-Based Parenting Practitioners

To apply to be accredited by BABCP as an Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioner, Practitioners would usually have two years’ experience since qualification in their Core Profession, meet all the EBPT Minimum Training Standards, maintain an agreed level of continuing professional development in Evidence-Based Parent Training, receive regular clinical supervision and adhere to the BABCP ‘Standards of Conduct, Performance and Ethics in the Practice of Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies’.

Based on the BABCP Minimum Training Standards for the Practice of Cognitive and/or Behavioural Psychotherapies, 1997, Rod Holland; Revised 2012, Helen Macdonald and Gillian Haddock; and adapted for Evidence-Based Parent Training Practitioners 2016.