Evening / weekend counsellor - no experience

[Hardly123]

Hello

I wonder if anyone could give me some advice please.

I've wanted to be a psychologist or counsellor since I was about 17(!) but I didn't have the right subjects at school. I also had a very disrupted home life and problems with my own mental health, so I knew it wasn't right. I sorted myself out, had lot of therapy across the years and trained as a solicitor. I am now approaching 40. My mental health is stable. I enjoy my job as a solicitor and I'm not ready to leave it. My hours are surprisingly reasonable.

However I read a lot of books about counselling, watch programmes about therapy and still participate in therapy myself. I find that every so often I look up the different course requirements etc.

I'm curious about transitioning to being a counsellor one day. I can see it is expensive and time consuming to do this.

I was wondering if there's a kind of halfway house that I'm not aware of yet that anyone could point to? For example, my friend has trained as a life coach and does online only sessions with clients on weekends around her full time job.

Is there anything manageable like this that anyone knows of that I could do? Even anything voluntary? For example, my ideal would be a six month evening only online counselling course, then an evening only online volunteer position with supervision from a charity. I could fit that in around my job and would enjoy it. Is that something that exists?

Any advice would be gratefully received!

Thank you.

I'm in a similar position, postgraduate diplomas are asking for level 3 in person courses over at least 2 terms as a prerequisite for applying. .A few offer their own equivalent intensive short course.
If you study on a non-accredited BACP course, you have to pass the BACP proficiency test before you can be registered with BACP as a counsellor.
CRUSE Bereavement and the Samaritans are good places to gain volunteer counselling experience, Indeed also has these types of opportunities.😀

Thanks so much. I will look into this and thanks for the tip about BACP accredited. Did you do your level 2 already? I am trying to find an online or evening one... any advice would be great.

The Samaritans and Rape Crisis often look for volunteers?

What about marriage guidance or mediation?

No, I am looking at the Graduate Counselling Skills 15 week course at Salford in lieu of L2/L3-some universities don't insist on a level 2/3 if they accept you on to their own intensive short course. I'll probably go for a Uni non-accredited 2 year part time PF Diploma, then do the proficiency test. If I could afford the travel, i would go for Preston or Salford or Newcastle (Northern Guild) BACP accredited Diplomas.

I don't think there are any fully online counseling courses because you need to do skills practice and personal development alongside your peers. I also don't know of any courses which allow you to do all of your placement hours online, most allow you to do a portion online but still insist on most of them being F2F.

If any training organisation operates a purely online training then they are useless and you would be totally wasting your money. No reputable organisation would accept you, not even as a volunteer counsellor. You need, quite rightly, a substantial amount of face to face work to become a qualified and accredited counsellor.

I did my counselling qualifications-
Level 1 6 week course 3 hours pw
Level 2 1 year 3 hours pw
Level 3 1 year 3 hours pw
Level 4 2 years 1 day pw plus 100 hours counselling practice
Level 6 1 year 1 day per week

I graduated in 2014. So would have been cheaper but think it cost around 7k in total. I did a lot of volunteering, then set up my own practice part time for a couple of years. I was BACP accredited. I applied for paid roles but they were few and far between and extremely over subscribed. I ended up going into family support and using the skills that way. Although a few years later we had some major life changes at home and I gave up work. I am working part time now but in a totally unrelated area.

If you live in a affluent area it's definitely possible to set your own business up. If you don't want to do the several years training as you say there are online coaching qualifications where you would use a similar skill set without the same level of expense and commitment.

Flip it around and ask yourself would you have wanted to see someone who had done an online course for a few months.

Working with people who may have experienced trauma and who are in distress is important work and shouldn't be treated lightly, unfortunately there are many unscrupulous, unqualified people out there in an profession where it is easy to hide as it's not clearly regulated.

It's great you want to do this but take the time and do it properly.

Thank you

Thanks, very helpful to see how you did it

I have been looking into it today and charities like the Samaritans don't require any counselling qualifications, they provide their own training,so anything you do, including online courses would be a bonus....

But having said that, online courses can include face to face experience and many counsellors and psychotherapists do now practice on zoom.

I do appreciate the importance of proper supervision and training. By online I don't mean a website e module, I am also thinking of in person interaction.

But even with the Samaritans and Childline you're not sitting in a room with the person you're talking to anyway. So I think there's room for a variety of different mediums.

Thanks for your reply. I did say that I was thinking of something voluntary and I think there's a range of different ways of supporting people in a counselling type role.

I appreciate the need for proper years of training for in-depth psychotherapy for significant trauma, for example.

What I'm asking about is about the range of different ways to provide counselling support and what might fit my circumstances and what I can offer.

I have been looking into it today and charities like the Samaritans don't require any counselling qualifications, they provide their own training,so anything you do, including online courses would be a bonus.

But having said that, online courses can include face to face experience and many counsellors and psychotherapists do now practice on zoom. Sitting face to face in a room with a counsellor is not necessarily what happens any longer, the majority practice in blended way, including psychoanalysts who have had years of training for example.

I do appreciate the importance of proper supervision and training. By online I don't mean a website e module, I am also thinking of in person interaction.

But even with the Samaritans and Childline you're not sitting in a room with the person you're talking to anyway. So I think there's room for a variety of different mediums.

What I am trying to work out is where I can see myself being useful within the range of options available. For example at Childline I've discovered you can volunteer four hours a week in the evening after a 12 week training course. You attend their site for the four hours a week, but you only talk to young people virtually, not face to face. So I think there's a wider range available and it wouldn't mean I'm not 'doing it properly'.

Thank you

Is it only counselling type stuff you'd be interested in or things like peer support / support worker where there's a bit more of a practical slant?

Would careers counselling interest you?
There are a range of courses you could do right up to postgraduate and some are online .

There is a skills shortage too so lots of jobs around.

Samaritans do actually do face to face support one to one, AND online support, as well as the well known phone line. The face to face is not very well publicized because they would be swamped. The training is brilliant and they are an amazing organisation to gain experience with. It is a privilege to be on their team and you are incredibly well supported. The only down side is that all of their training is in house, so once you leave, you have a massive amount of practical experience, but no actual formal qualification or accreditation. (This is the exact position I am in now).

If you are looking at starting a course, do a CPCAB course which is properly accredited.

Yes, the training is excellent, but the service offered by Samaritans is NOT counselling, and never has been. This and other helplines do a good job, but they are constantly having to remind volunteers that any hours done on the helpline DON'T count for counselling courses. Please do not use one of these services just as "a means to an end", because that doesn't help you nor is it fair on the charity.

Absolutely correct - they do not claim to be counselling and I totally agree it is not a "means to an end". It is a brilliant and amazingly worthwhile experience in itself. I have worked for them for over 30 years and it comes from a different angle to counselling, but many skills used are similar in nature to person centred counselling.

A 6 month course just does not qualify you to counsel anyone. It just does not. I am a therapist and I wish thus would be regulated out of existence. You have to do all the training etc, because you seal with people lives, their relationships, their families, their mental health. Do it properly or not at all please.

If you live in a affluent area it's definitely possible to set your own business up. If you don't want to do the several years training as you say there are online coaching qualifications where you would use a similar skill set without the same level of expense and commitment.

I find this sort of 'advice' terrifying.

Thanks for your advice and explanation. This does sound really brilliant.

Thanks. I sort of understand what you're saying, but I also don't really understand, in that there are roles which aren't roles for fully qualified counsellors but still allow you to help people and use counselling skills which you've learnt through various methods, like the Samaritans, Childline, Shout, life coaching, running support groups. Without meaning to be confrontational, do you think from your experience of being a therapist that these services should only be staffed by fully qualified counsellors? I'm not trying to be difficult, just trying to understand where you're coming from when you say do it properly or not at all.

Samaritans and similar are not counselling services, they are listening and support services and their training is specific and rigorous because they rightly do not allow the listeners to engage in counselling or advice type conversations with the service users. They train these urges out of their volunteers.

Are you interested in getting some skills to do some volunteer support activities? Or are you looking to do a full training with a view to a career change?
Coaching is a different, less training and can be well paid but a competitive market and you need to be able to sell yourself.

To be an ethical, competent counsellor or psychotherapist you need to do a serious, bacp or UKCP accredited course which requires personal therapy as part of the training. Look at a diploma in psychotherapeutic counselling. (I have this and a psychotherapy MSc)

It is hard to build a practise which is sustainable both energy wise and financially. There are overheads and so quite a lot of clients are needed weekly before you can earn a decent living, even at what seems to be a high hourly rate which comes with appropriate training level. It is not possible to (again, ethically) work full time hours - I know no one who does more than 20 and most do less than that.

Yes, so people are now, post covid, working online more but a lot of clients want face to face, and research into the effectiveness of online is being done, not enough info yet to know if outcomes are equivalent.

It is a rewarding and interesting job, but hard and there are some terrible, poorly trained people out there practicing. These people can further traumatise vulnerable people and so to do it properly a lot of self reflection is needed to know if you have what it takes to be a good practitioner. Not saying you don't OP, just giving some food for thought which I hope is helpful.

(And this is why those of us who have done many years training and uphold professional standards are annoyed by short, easy, shallow courses churning out people who give our profession a bad name. )