Doing a Counselling Course

So today is the last day of the first year of my 2 year counselling diploma at Level 4. I already spent last year doing Level 2 & 3. By the end of next year I will be fully qualified and able to practise independently, whereas now I can only work in an agency. However, there are actually no rules governing counselling training so in theory I could hang up my shingle now !

I thought it would be worthwhile reflecting on whether doing this training is worthwhile and what I would like to have been told last year but wasn't !

I would like to have been told how difficult it was to get a placement, how expensive therapy and supervision are and what placements to go after so that you can complete 100 hours of face to face counselling in an agency in order to qualify. Although I did plenty of research and asked people already on the course I was not told any of this. As a result I've had to earn quite a bit of extra money that I hadn't budgeted for. Fortunately I am able to do this and can mostly choose when I work. However, I have also done a great deal of unpaid voluntary work in order to try and be offered some counselling work to build up my hours and that I think is a bit exploitative.

I don't know how it works in other countries but in this one, all counsellors even qualified ones, must also pay for at least 90 minutes supervision a month. Over the past three months I've had to pay for a lot more than this as I attempted to build up my face to face hours.

The upshot of all this is that I do have just over 50 hours counselling work from this year and am hopeful that now I have more experience it will be easier to find opportunities which can be fitted around working more often. My best placement has been in a school and my worst, well I don't like to say ! But I have also discovered that I do quite like being in charge rather than being told what to do, so I can see private practice beckoning when I finish next year rather than working for somebody else !

One thing is for sure, I have a better handle on the budget needed for training than I did last year !!