Do you want to Work as a Counsellor?

Working as a counsellor is a very rewarding job, but what does it take to work as a counsellor?

Counsellors provide a safe and confidential environment to encourage service users or clients to discuss their problems and to talk about their feelings to identify how they can make positive changes to their own lives.

People often look for counselling for a variety of reasons – this could be relationship breakdowns, the death of a relative or close friend, bullying, addiction to name just a few.

The role of a counsellor is not to judge or to advise people what to do. Counsellors aim to help the client identify their own challenges and encourage their clients to look for options open to them, and to help them make positive changes and improvements.

Counsellors may choose to work with people with a wide range of issues, or quite often they choose to specialise in a particular area.

At Oxford College we offer a Level 3 Diploma in Counselling which is a good start to get into counselling. The Level 3 Diploma will provide potential counsellors with a good foundation to build upon. It’s syllabus deals with the necessary qualities required of a counsellor through to interviewing a client, and identifying problem areas such as depression, stress and suicide, relationships and sexual counselling, death and bereavement and drugs, alcohol and finances.

The Level 3 Diploma concludes by looking at the ethics of being a counsellor and counselling administration which is helpful to counsellors wanting to set up their own business, or to identify when clients should be referred to another professional.

Other Level 3 Diploma counselling courses that may be of interest and are more specialised include Addiction Counselling, Bereavement Counselling, Child & Adolescent Counselling, Debt Counselling, and Relationship & Couples Counselling.

After completing a Level 3 Diploma students can either progress onto a Level 4 or Level 4&5 Combined Diploma in Therapeutic Person-Centred Counselling and thereafter up to degree level with a university. Alternatively, you could look straight for employment either in your desired specialist area or as a general counsellor, or even become a self-employed counsellor.

Upon successful completion of our Level 3 Diplomas, students are eligible to register with the Accredited Counsellors, Coaches, Psychotherapists and Hypnotherapists at https://www.accph.org.uk/

So, if you want a change in career, like to listen and encourage people to talk about their feelings, and have empathy and can sympathise, then cwhy not work as a counsellor?