Sound Therapy Network


 

 

What's VSR? A Brief History...

Voluntary Self-Regulation - The Background

In 2000, the House of Lords Science & Technology Committee issued a report assessing the current status & standards of Complementary Therapies and Alternative Medicine. The report highlighted issues of public protection & safety; the establishment & regulation of practitioner standards - code of conduct, standards of professional training etc - and the evolving provision of complementary therapy through the NHS.

The Committee recommended that regulation should be proportionate to the risks involved and listed each therapy submitted for inclusion into a Group category. It recommended that unregulated CAM professions develop their own independent, unified systems of Voluntary Self-Regulation.

What are the benefits of regulation?

Voluntary self-regulation offers the public increased protection and safety. It provides therapy membership associations with an elected, representative body to preserve an holistic approach within their chosen therapy and to actively participate in the future of how their therapies are developed.

No presentations on sound therapy were made to the committee, so sound therapy was not considered for inclusion in the House of Lords' report. Despite the omission, there is growing public interest and awareness of the therapeutic effects of sound and more therapists are interested in incorporating sound therapy in their work.

Working Party forums representing the 12 Group 2 therapies were established with the help of the Prince of Wales' Foundation for Integrated Health and discussions for creating a VSR Council to represent only those therapies are well under way.

The Prince's Foundation for Integrated Health has become a key player in the consultation process and their website offers updates that track their progress to date.

The Foundation is essentially in favor of creating an over-arching Council that would regulate the 12 therapies but, by its nature, it currently excludes all other therapies who do not meet their criteria.

Sound Therapy - what is our future?

It is too soon to contemplate us being able to join any form of VSR Council until we have formed at least one represenative association for those of us who are interested in doing so. We have no idea how many people are working in the field of sound therapy in this country and so it makes sense to try to form a working association prior to any attempts towards VSR.

There appears to be a growing interest in sound therapy in the UK. More and more, individuals within our field are contacted for information about training courses and methods for working with sound. It seems the time could be right for us to form an organization that can act as a resource and point of contact for both the public and professional organisations.

If you are interested in learning more,

please email: contact@soundtherapynetwork.org

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