3 tips to help you find the course that suits you
Counselling courses, just like the counsellors who come from them, can vary greatly in quality. And size is not necessarily a good guide to a course’s quality. Some courses will give you great skills and experience, while others will leave you with nothing more than a piece of paper. So how do you decide which is the best course?
Here are three very important things to look for when you’re choosing a counselling course.
Reputation
Find an industry recognised course that has graduated counsellors into the profession; counsellors who have a good, reliable reputation themselves. This will become very important to you as a student, because the best counselling courses will incorporate a lot of hands-on practice to build your skills and experience through industry-based placement.
So, if the organisations that use counsellors professionally will allow a teaching institute to place its students with them for practical purposes, you know this organisation has a reputation you can trust. This organisational reputation will be closely linked to the fact that a reputable and effective counselling degree will be taught by people who are not only qualified, but are also skilled and experienced.
(Tabor has 30 years experience and places students with organisations such as ….) Our counselling teachers are all actively engaged in counselling practice as well as teaching. They ‘do’, and they teach.
Flexibility
It is a reality of the world that many counselling students will also be employed, or caring for family. That’s why flexibility of study is vital.
Flexible delivery can include part time study, online, and distance teaching. This allows you to study where, when and how will most efficiently suit your life.
Studying with smaller class sizes means that this flexibility is not at the expense of personal interaction with teachers and staff. This is another cornerstone of Tabor, which regularly rates as one of the highest institutions in the country for student satisfaction and interaction. That’s another aspect of the reputation that you’ll want to consider – will your teacher be there when you need them?
Outcome
This is why we study, right? To ensure that, at the other end, we are able to work as professional counsellors. However, an excellent degree will also empower you to use your counselling skills across other professions, such as nursing, teaching, ministry or other human services roles.
As a professional counsellor, the course of study you undertake should lead you into accreditation with the peak industry bodies, ensuring you a credible and viable practice base. The choice of a reputable, flexible postgraduate course means your accreditation will be virtually assured. You will complete your time of study fully qualified, experienced, registered and confident to take on your new role as a professional in the helping professions.
