Counselling Skills Certificate

This certificate is built on our extensive experience of delivering a range of humanistic courses, from the Postgraduate Diploma in Humanistic Counselling, our work with experienced counsellors in the NHS and our successful BA Counselling and Mental Health degree. The York St John Communities Centre is part of the counselling subject area. As a result, we are able to draw on a variety of expertise, experience and knowledge in counselling.

The certificate will offer you an introduction to humanistic theory and a range of counselling-based skills. These include: active listening, attending to both verbal and non-verbal communication, empathy, acceptance, and being real and genuine in a helping relationship. In essence this course will enable you to build on and develop your interpersonal, intrapersonal and communication skills.

The certificate will be delivered over 20 weeks for 3.5 hours each week. It will contain the following elements:

• Understanding theories of counselling and mental health
• Working in triads to develop your counselling and helping skills
• Activities to develop your self-awareness
• Introduction to the ethics underpinning any helping relationship

One aim of the certificate is to prepare you for entry onto professional counsellor training. The certificate will also appeal to those wishing to develop their interpersonal and communication skills, or those engaged in a variety of helping work. This work might include: nurses, teachers, managers, befrienders, those working in HR, social workers, mentors, and advocates.