FdA Counselling

This Counselling Foundation Degree is for people aged 18 and over who wish to develop a career as a professional counsellor.

It will support you to:

• Develop academic and research skills in counselling
• Work towards a professional counsellor accreditation
• Enhance your counselling skills for other employment or your current professional roles.

During this Counselling Foundation Degree course, you will complete a number of different modules. Areas studied could include:

• Counselling relationships
• BACP/NCS ethical framework
• Counselling skills
• Creative approaches to counselling
• Theoretical approaches
• Application to practice
• Personal development
• Humanistic approaches: gestalt, transactional analysis, psychosynthesis and existential approaches
• Solution-focused therapy
• Professional practice
• Human development
• Working with loss and grief
• Evidence-based practice and research
• Mental health in a counselling context
• Supervision, professional and reflective practice

To join this course, students will usually need:

• 5 GCSEs at 4 or above (A*- C) including English Language and Maths
• 80 UCAS points from Level 3 qualifications such as A Level or BTEC
• Level 2 Certificate in Counselling (or other suitable counselling experience or qualification)
• A completed DBS check

We will take significant relevant work experience into account where appropriate. This must be directly relevant to the field of counselling and will be discussed and investigated at the interview.

All applications are considered on an individual basis.

Please note: this is an in-person course. Many of the classes are experiential and learning comes from your experience in the group. it is important that you are able to attend college regularly.

We use a wide variety of assessment techniques which are all coursework-based including written assignments, presentations, practical skills assessments, critical reviews, creative pieces and a portfolio of counselling and supervision logs and reports.

During this Counselling Foundation Degree course, you will be asked to complete a minimum of 30 hours in a vocational placement, some of which can be undertaken prior to starting the course, where you will develop your counselling skills and knowledge.

In stage 2, you will start your counselling placement and practice as a trainee counsellor in an approved counselling setting to achieve 100 counselling hours under supervision.

After successfully completing this Counselling Foundation Degree course, you may move on to work as a qualified counsellor with an agency, employer or in private practice or use your qualified counsellor status in another profession.

Completion of this programme would allow for direct entry into the BA (hons) Level 6 top-up programme at the City of Bristol College leading to the BA (Hons) Counselling Degree awarded by Bath Spa University

As a City of Bristol College student, you may incur additional costs to attend your course. For example, it is likely you may need to pay for travel and stationery. 

Many courses offer learning opportunities that you may need to pay for. This may include things like study visits and visiting speakers. We will let you know in advance if there will be additional costs.

For this programme of study, you will need to complete a Disclosure and Barring Service application which costs £55. Students must receive a satisfactory DBS disclosure to continue on the course.

You will be expected to pay to join the BACP or National Counselling Society and will need to pay for your own counselling whilst on the course.

When on placement you may also need to pay for:

• supervision costs
• travel expenses
• insurance related to your placement