General certificate
General Certificate in Online Counselling Skills (Module 1)
Validated by CPCAB (Counselling and Psychotherapy Central Awards Body)

Learning Online to Counsel Online

This Introductory Course is designed help counsellors and other therapists become familiar with the technology and relationship skills needed to counsel online. Much of the work is group-based. Relationships are made with other students and tutors who do not meet face to face during the Course. Course members learn how to create, sustain and end online working relationships by following a timetable of weekly assignments which introduce them to the online counselling environment. The entire Course is run from our campus website.

All the work is carried out using the student's own computer and internet connection - there are no face to face or telephone meetings but regular online meetings are held at pre-arranged times in our website conference rooms which course members are required to attend. Support and feedback is available for all course members from the tutors and there is also a free online student counselling service.

On completion of the Course, students present required pieces of work for assessment by the tutors and they are encouraged to circulate them for other course members to read. Successful students will be awarded the General Certificate in Online Counselling Skills.

It is anticipated that students will spend 8-10 hours a week on this Course. We hold two Private Study weeks during the Course, to allow students to catch up with reading. Those who are not very technically proficient may need longer. This is a 10-week course of 65 guided learning hours.

If you want to find out more you can download a Brief Course Guide by clicking here. When you have finished downloading you can save the Guide to your computer, close the screen and you will return to this web page. The Brief Course Guide is a pdf file and you may need to download Acrobat Reader to open it. Again, if you close the window when the download has finished, you will return to this page.

If you are not already familiar with sending and receiving emails and file attachments, chatting on Instant Messenger and internet chatrooms, you may want to consider our two-week pre-course preparation (Click the button 'Pre-Course' to find out more.)

If you want to enquire about our pre-course tuition or you have any queries about our General Certificate please click here and email our Admissions Tutor, Anne Stokes. We occasionally experience problems with emails not getting through to Anne. If you don't receive a reply from her within 3 days, please click here and send your query to Gill Jones or alternatively, post Anne a letter (to the address at the bottom of the application form).