An Introduction to Child and Adolescent Counselling

A 60-hour course aimed at adults working with young people and children, who want to begin to develop some counselling skills and knowledge.  It is appropriate for those working directly with children and young people in education or other settings such as youth work, health, or social care. It is also the entry course for those wishing to pursue the Postgraduate Diploma and Masters Courses in counselling which, together, constitute a national accredited psychotherapeutic counsellor training.  This course aims to explore counselling with children and adolescents and develop the skills and theoretical base for such work. Course members will be supported to use these skills in their own work setting during the course.

An Integrative Approach

This course will examine concepts from different counselling models and the application of these concepts and skills, to work with individual children, adolescents and groups.  It will also explore the area of interpersonal work with other adults. Developmental approaches to, and the skills of counselling will be considered, including assessing the contributions of different models of counselling. Consideration will also be given to specific areas including:-

Using Arts and Play

There will be a focus on working therapeutically with the arts and with play.  This will include practical sessions making and working with art images, sand tray work, as well as exploring the value of therapeutic story work.

Teaching Methods

The course is taught through an active learning approach that centres on experiential work.  Teaching also takes place through

COUNSELLING SKILLS IN PRACTICE

All course members will be required to do at least 5 sessions of Counselling skills practice outside of the course time and to write this up for presentation. These sessions may be with a child in the participant's work setting or with an adult

The next course will run in Michaelmas Term 2012 and will start on 9 October 2012. For more information, please see the CPD/PPD Courses Pages.