Members of LAPIDUS work in a wide range of health care and educational contexts.  In order to safeguard members and their clients, LAPIDUS has developed the following policy documents and ethical guidelines to support members working in those settings. 

Ethical Code - As a Lapidus Member, individuals agree to abide by the contents of this document.

Child Protection Policy

Equality and Diversity Policy

Data Protection Policy and Privacy Statement

As a limited company Lapidus also has its own Articles of Association and Memorandum of Association which are reference documents for the Board and the Members

Accreditation for Therapeutic Writing Practitioners

Kate Thompson has drawn up a proposal for a certification scheme drawing on models of accreditation already in use by organisations such as the US National Association for Poetry Therapy and The British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists.

Issues of how to progress from here are frequently raised in Lapidus meetings, opening up wider philosophical and political questions about the nature of creative writing, freedom of the artist and the imagination in relation to methods of assessing and quantifying a person's suitability to facilitate writing with others in a way that aims to be therapeutic. Lapidus Professional Membership offers practitioners a way of signalling to host organisations and participants that they are qualified to practise.

Writers who are writing facilitators of course wish to work in conditions that are responsibly organised and framed with consideration of safety, good practice and respect for the skills and professionalism of the practitioner and meeting the needs of participants. This includes the practical matters of suitable rooms to work in without interruption, supervision, pay and contracts. The document Core Competencies for Working with the Literary Arts for Personal Development, Health and Well-being by Rose Flint, Fiona Hamilton and Claire Williamson, is an attempt clearly to outline what these essentials are.

Writers, however, tend to be challengers of established institutional frameworks rather than 'blenders-in' - and our art needs to have enough freedom to breathe. How do we reconcile these considerations?