ACC changes upset counsellors

BY NAOMI ARNOLD

At least 24 sexual abuse counsellors in the Nelson region say they will stop doing ACC-funded work because its new practice guidelines will breach their code of ethics and cause more harm to their clients.

Nelson psychotherapist Susan Hawthorne is leading the charge against ACC's changes to its sensitive claims unit (SCU) that, she says, will see victims of sexual abuse suffer intolerable delays for treatment.

All except four Nelson counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists have signed a statement urging ACC to stop the proposed changes from going ahead on October 12.

The changes have also been criticised by the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists, the New Zealand Association of Counsellors, the New Zealand Association of Christian Counsellors, the New Zealand Association of Social Workers, Rape Crisis, the Sensitive Claims Advisory Group, the New Zealand College of Clinical Psychologists, the National Network Ending Sexual Violence Together and the New Zealand Psychological Society.

The new guidelines, based on Massey University research into "best practice", mean that sex-abuse victims will have four sessions to tell their story to a counsellor, who would then write a report for the SCU, which would decide if the claim was accepted. An ACC psychotherapist would assess the need for ongoing counselling and assign a therapist.

Currently, sexual abuse survivors could choose whom they saw for counselling, said Ms Hawthorne, and ACC's job advertisements for clinical psychologists had no requirement for experience in dealing with sexual abuse.

Ms Hawthorne said people who had been sexually abused, particularly within the family, had "huge issues" with trust, and the new system would completely disregard the importance of relationship with counsellors.

"And yet the best research shows is that the most vital ingredient of successful therapy is the relationship of the client with the therapist," she said. "This process puts [clients] at greater risk because we cannot guarantee continuity of care for them, which they've had in the past. There are huge gaps where they will be left to their own devices."

However, ACC senior medical adviser Peter Jansen said improvement was the goal and there was "a great deal of misunderstanding" around the new guidelines, which were meant to speed up decision-making.

"Currently, people are waiting quite some time and in the past there has been a huge backlog depending on a whole range of issues. There's been inconsistency in timeliness, in decision-making and we want to make that more consistent and more effective."

Ms Hawthorne said victims of sexual abuse would now need a psychiatric diagnosis of mental illness that would affect them for the rest of their lives, even once they had recovered.

"Every client is going to have to be given a psychiatric diagnosis as though they're psychiatrically unwell when actually they're victims of a crime," she said.

However, Mr Jansen said the requirements for a psychiatric diagnosis had always been in place.

He said that for ACC to help people, it needed to understand what it was helping.

ACC Minister Nick Smith said he had received complaints, but said he wasn't going to overturn "comprehensive research".

- © Fairfax NZ News