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There are lots of options out there for training. How do I select the right one?

First think about where you want to end up. If you want to be recognised by a specific professional organisation (of which there are several), If you want to be recognised by a specific professional organisation (of which there are several), or be acceptable to a particular employer, check with the professional body, training school, or employer in question, and find out what they need from you to be accepted.. If you are selecting a starter-course, make sure to check that it will be a stepping stone to your next qualification. Not all Level 2 trainings are equivalent, and may not necessarily be what you need to be accepted on a CPCAB Level 3 training. To know if a prior training is sufficient for entry to a further course, inquire of the centre providing the further training, not the centre offering the previous training, as they may not have up-to-date information, or may not reliably know the current status.

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What can I do to improve my chances of being accepted onto the course?

We offer places to eligible applicants in date order of application. You need to meet the criteria listed on our website, and as listed in the course specification for CSK-L2 listed on the CPCAB website, but we do not 'cherry-pick' candidates or compare applicants with each other. Where the course is rapidly coming close to its start-date, our centres may prioritise applicants who contact us, who respond promptly to our request for interview over those who appear not to be responding, because of the time-constraints of the interview process.

Counselling trainings stretch students on occasion, and it's possible that you might find yourself out of your "comfort-zone" at times. In your interview, your interviewer may want to explore whether you are in a life-situation where you are able to cope with this. For example, they may choose to explore how robust your support network is outside the classroom, to what degree your competing life-responsibilities currently press on you, and for life-events which are contra-indications to taking on the rigours of the course (eg. if you are experiencing mental health issues). In some cases we may suggest that you reapply at a later date or (normally for those progressing on their existing training path) our centres may make an offer that is conditional on your engagement in counselling.

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Is it possible to my entire counselling training online?

At some levels, yes. If you decide to follow the CPCAB training route, then you can train online for levels 2 and 3, at which point (Level 4) CPCAB require that there should be a significant element of face-to-face training. Our centres offer starter-level trainings at Level 2, as a fully online option, and an online Level 3 follow-on course. For CPCAB's Level 4 counselling training, the main part of your training course would be on location, so at that point you would need to enrol with a local provider. If your preferred training route is other than a CPCAB one after Level 3, or are looking for a more specialised training (eg. for pastoral care, working with children, or where the provider has other special requirements) you should check with the course provider in question to ensure your prior learning will meet their requirement at that point in your training.

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What experience do your tutor teams have?

Our trainers are all highly experienced counsellors and are CPCAB-approved.

All our team members have over a decade's background as practitioners in counselling and psychotherapy. Our teaching staff have experience in other counselling training contexts and have taught training groups in multiple training contexts at Levels 1-6. Our team members have previously programme-led or taught counselling-courses for Guildford College, Banbury Counselling Academy, Newbury College and University of Greenwich.

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Are there any extra costs?

You will need an internet connection that is reliable and has sufficient bandwidth to support Zoom conferencing and a computer to engage with the training, as well as a private, reliably-available space for classwork.

For online sessions our centres use Zoom, which you can download and use for free. Assignments are submitted via online web-forms, with Powerpoint-compatible files (for presentations), which you can create and edit in Microsoft Office, or if you prefer, a compatible free alternative such as LibreOffice which can be downloaded and used for free from the internet.

What is the difference between BACP and CPCAB?

The Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awarding Body (CPCAB) is the awarding body for your training qualifications. Our centres partner with CPCAB to ensure that our counselling courses and the counsellor tutors who teach on them are independently and rigorously assessed, and that we meet CPCAB's professional standards. CPCAB is the only awarding body in the UK that is run by counsellors for counsellors, which makes it ideally placed to assess the standards to which its centres must operate..

BACP (the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy) is a major professional membership body for UK-based counsellors and psychotherapists. It has a role in setting standards and in protecting the public and represents the interests of the counselling & psychotherapy profession.

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