Three steps, one route.

Seven units, working towards demonstrating the following skills and knowledge:

• Unit 1 — Using counselling skills ethically and safely
• Unit 2 — Establishing and sustaining the boundaries of the helping role
• Unit 3 — Working empathically as a helper
• Unit 4 — Focusing on the helpee's needs and concerns
• Unit 5 — Using self-awareness in helping work
• Unit 6 — Using a range of counselling skills to facilitate the helping interaction
• Unit 7 — Using feedback and reflection to enhance counselling skills

Age 18+. No specific previous training or experience required, although you will be asked to attend a brief, informal interview. Selection for enrolment may include factors such as:

• Ability to cope with course content
• Willingness to be open to others and learning about self
• Ability to benefit from self-development
• Motivation towards developing as a helper
• Awareness of difference and diversity
• Emotional stability and resilience

We interview applicants on a rolling basis. Once your application is reviewed, we'll be in touch directly to arrange an online interview.

Assessment is based entirely on your portfolio of evidence, which you build week by week throughout the course, and forms as your final internal assessment.

A minimum of 80% attendance is required to complete the qualification. Please familiarise yourself with the course dates and ensure you can attend all sessions (which include two weekends).

All Tuesdays, 18:00 – 21:00. Green dates are full-day weekend sessions.

Seven units, working towards demonstrating the following skills and knowledge:

• Unit 1 — Prepare to work within an ethical framework for counselling
• Unit 2 — Understand the counselling relationship
• Unit 3 — Understand difference and diversity issues to develop empathic understanding
• Unit 4 — Work within a user-centred approach to counselling
• Unit 5 — Use counselling theory to develop self-awareness in counselling practice
• Unit 6 — Understand theories of counselling and mental health
• Unit 7 — Use feedback, reflection and supervision to support counselling studies

Minimum age 19. You must have completed counselling skills training — CPCAB's Level 2 Certificate in Counselling Skills or an equivalent qualification of at least 75 guided learning hours. If you're unsure whether your existing certificate qualifies, bring it to the interview.

The course involves experiential work and personal disclosure, so it is not suitable if you are currently in severe emotional difficulty.

We're looking for applicants who:

• Can manage the academic and practical work of the course
• Are willing to explore their own experiences and personal growth
• Can put their thoughts and feelings into words and reflect on them
• Are motivated to move towards professional counselling training
• Are open to difference, diversity and perspectives unlike their own
• Can deliver and receive feedback and learn from it

Internal assessment is a portfolio of evidence built through the year: written assignments, an activity task, a self-review, learning reviews, assessed counselling practice and case presentations, and tutor-observed practice sessions.

As part of this course, we encourage you to undertake a placement of 20 hours. This is a placement outside of the course where you can practise some of the skills used by counsellors but is not formally contracted counselling. Working with family and friends is not sufficient.

A placement is a situation in which you take on a helping role that involves the use of counselling skills. This might be within your paid employment if your work requires a helping role, such as a nurse, pastoral work as a teacher, carer, etc. It does not apply to paid employment where the focus is not helping – for example shop work, bar work, hairdressing etc.

A minimum of 80% attendance is required to complete the qualification. Please familiarise yourself with the course dates and ensure you can attend all sessions.

Dates to be confirmed.

The qualification is approved by Skills England as a Higher Technical Qualification (HTQ) and meets the requirements of SCoPEd Column A. It also holds NCPS Recognised Professional Qualification status and provides routes to professional registration, subject to the requirements of the relevant professional body.

Seven mandatory units, working towards demonstrating the following skills and knowledge:

• Unit 1 — Working ethically, safely and professionally as a counsellor
• Unit 2 — Working within a counselling relationship
• Unit 3 — Working with client diversity in counselling work
• Unit 4 — Working within a user-centred approach to counselling
• Unit 5 — Working with self-awareness in the counselling process
• Unit 6 — Working within a coherent framework of counselling theory and skills
• Unit 7 — Working self-reflectively as a counsellor

You will need a supervised placement at an agency working with real clients.

A minimum of 100 formally contracted and appropriately supervised counselling hours (one-to-one), including a generic mix of client groups. A maximum of 49 hours can be gained from online / phone counselling.

A minimum of 1.5 hours per month, with a suitably qualified/experienced supervisor working clearly within the Person-Centred model. Their CV will be required before you start to work with your supervisor.

Where / if supervision is offered within the agency setting, this must not be with the agency manager or a line manager who holds clinical responsibility for your work.

A minimum of 25 hours of personal therapy, usually divided into 10 hours in Year 1 and 15 hours in Year 2.

Internal assessment is a portfolio of evidence built over the two years: written assignments, learning reviews, self-reviews, tutor-observed practice, case presentations, and your placement supervisor's report.

Minimum age 19. Level 3 Certificate in Counselling Studies or equivalent, plus interview.

• Identifying reasons for training beyond personal development.
• Academic and emotional ability to cope with this level of training.
• Willingness and sufficient openness to work with difference and diversity.
• Personal qualities such as warmth, imagination, intuition, openness, integrity, transparency, and the ability to benefit from self-development.
• Ability to form and sustain a therapeutic relationship.
• Self-awareness, insight, honesty, and the ability to make links.
• Emotional stability/evidence that this is the right time for training and sufficient support is in place.
• Ability to challenge and be challenged without being personally diminished.
• Ability to respond sensitively and empathically to others.
• Capability to begin working with clients within an agency setting once assessed as ready to do so.
• Active search for placement to begin work with clients during Year 1 of the programme.

A minimum of 90% attendance is required. 420 guided learning hours across two academic years, plus placement, supervision, and therapy hours.

Dates to be confirmed.

An introduction to:

• What counselling is, and what it is not
• The skills a counsellor uses
• What training involves, level by level
• Whether this is the right path for you

Anyone considering counselling training, including people who have never studied in this field before. No experience or prior qualification needed.