Accreditation Rationale - Society for Dialectical Behaviour Therapy

Our aim / goal in providing an accreditation process is to ensure that service users and their families can be assured that their practitioner is offering DBT to a recognised standard and that employers can be sure that their staff are appropriately qualified for their roles.

We are affiliated with the Linehan Board of Certification http://www.dbt-lbc.org/ in the USA which has recently launched a certification process for individual DBT therapist which fulfills the same function as certification in the USA.

Thus our accreditation process involves a board or experts (the Board of Accreditation) which provides an independent assessment of the knowledge, skills, and/or competencies required for competent performance of a professional role or specific work-related tasks that insures to the clients and other professionals that the accredited provider is considered competent to deliver Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. Accreditation also is intended to measure or enhance continued competence through on-going maintenance of accreditation requirements.

Accept No Substitutes

Many therapists train in DBT, but not all who do are actually adherent to the DBT model. Substitute treatments may have no or, at worst, catastrophic results. A roster of accredited mental health practitioners is needed to ensure therapists are providing DBT with fidelity to DBT as it has been scientifically validated.

Since 1991 when the first randomized, controlled trial supporting the efficacy of Dialectical Behavior Therapy was published, the behavioural health community and its stakeholders have had an ever-increasing interest in the development of standards that insure that individuals and programs delivering DBT are doing so with fidelity to the model.

As more studies were done and dissemination of the treatment began in earnest, the need for these types of standards has become increasingly important to a number of concerned parties including:

Individuals in need of treatment.
Family members and loved ones of those in need of treatment.
NHS, third sector providers and commissioners
Practitioners, researchers and treatment developers.
Professional societies and organizations

The concerns of these stakeholders include:

Individuals have the right to be informed regarding the credentials of a provider

Individuals receiving care, their family members and loved ones have the right to some measure of assurance the provider is capable of giving the “best care” possible.

Commissioners and health care managers have to manage resources by providing access to quality care while managing health care funding in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

Clinicians have the right to be recognized for providing high quality services, thus distinguishing the provider from others less qualified.