FdA Counselling

Help others improve their wellbeing and quality of life by studying counselling. This programme will prepare you to become a professional counsellor and help you to help others cope with problems, such as mental health issues, bereavement and relationship issues. The modules you will study will be focused on person-centred counselling and current issues and best practice within the sector.

Aims

• Meet the needs of voluntary and statutory organisations for appropriately trained and qualified Counsellors.
• Offer a robust and vocationally relevant degree in Counselling for a wide range of students from diverse backgrounds.
• Provide graduates with a base from which to pursue a career in Counselling.
• Provide graduates with a base from which to pursue personal accreditation with the BACP and an honours degree in Counselling.

The course content has been designed to ensure that graduates will be able to demonstrate the knowledge, understanding, skills and personal development necessary to counsel professionally.

Modules Year 1

• Personal Development – this module focuses on personal development through specific tasks, PPD group, personal therapy and a residential weekend.
• Comparative Models of Counselling – this module looks at different models of counselling.
• Counselling Skills & Practice – for this module you will work in a triad group and apply Person Centred counselling.
• Professional Issues - this module addresses ethics, legal aspects of practice, supervision, note keeping and professional boundaries.
• Counselling Children and Young People - this module is concerned with specific ways to counsel children and young people, safeguarding and legal components of working with children.

Year 2:

• Supervised Counselling Practice – this module involves undertaking a supervised counselling placement of 100 hours.
• Personal and Professional Development – in this module you will continue to develop your personal and professional skills as a counsellor.
• Contemporary Issues - this module focuses on specific client issues and contemporary issues affecting the profession.
• Understanding Research - this module focuses on research methods and how to critique a research paper.
• Therapeutic Process - this module encourages close examination of work with clients.

In addition, Level 4 students are required to undertake at least 6 hours of personal therapy. You must successfully complete all modules from Year 1, and have the appropriate counselling placement requirements completed in order to progress to the second year of the course. These requirements are in line with current BACP requirements.

Teaching & assessment

At Level 4, the teaching and learning strategies will allow you to develop the skills required for HE learning, and focus on the development of professional and personal counselling skills. At Level 5, the teaching and learning strategies used by tutors will continue to develop higher order intellectual skill of analysis but the focus will be on the development of evaluation and professional competence. This will be achieved through the use of a variety of mechanisms, particularly through the use of supervised counselling placements.

Independent learning will be encouraged and supported. At Level 4, these activities will be in part tutor directed and at Level 5 students will be expected to undertake more independent learning. Part of your professional and personal development will involve undertaking of a range of self-assessment activities at the start of the programme to allow you to plan your learning. The teaching team will draw on the results of these initial activities to ensure all learning styles are captured.

Interview Instructions

You will be invited into the College for an interview once shortlisted following application. You will be expected to take part in a written assessment during the interview process.

Entry Criteria

• Evidence of 120 hours of previous counselling training at Level 3 OR substantial and recent experience as a practitioner.
• A clear enhanced DBS check.
• Evidence towards possessing the skills and personal qualities needed to become a reflective practitioner.
• The skills required to create supportive helping relationships in a paid or voluntary role.

If you don't hold the standard qualifications, you could gain access to the programme if you have substantial counselling practice in an appropriate setting. You will need to:

• Have the skills and personal qualities which would enable them to become a reflective practitioner.
• Be able to demonstrate an ability to study at foundation degree level.
• Be able to engage in supportive, helping relationships.
• Be able to undertake a specified number of mandatory supervised counselling placement hours.

Accreditation of Prior Learning (APL):

If you have previously studied on a similar award, and have gained higher education credit at an equivalent level, it may be possible to take this into account to gain exemptions from one or more modules.