Train to be a counsellor

Cork Counselling Services is now enrolling autumn 2021 students for its professional counsellor training courses in Cork city.

With two city centre locations, its flagship BSc honours degree course is now accredited by Coventry University and by the Irish Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy, Ireland’s largest professional body.

Next year Cork Counselling Services will be 40 years in the city and engaged in training for 24 years. It is a busy community counselling service and all profits from training are reinvested in the organisation so that it can continue to make counselling available to people, regardless of their financial circumstances.

The organisation trains in a person-centred model of counselling. Students learn to build safe, trusting relationships with clients.

To work as a counsellor in the field of mental health requires a commitment to lifelong experiential and reflective learning, finding out more about oneself and others while in relationship. Although counselling and psychotherapy work is very rewarding, it is also personally demanding and challenging. Students learn to care for themselves as well as for others.

Because Cork Counselling Services operates a busy city centre practice, the training is led by trainers who counsel as much as they teach. The student’s initial client work will be done in the busy centre in Fr Mathew St, accompanied and supervised by the professional team.

There is also a library and tutorial centre in Hanover Street. Cork Counselling Services also offers in-house placement opportunities when a student needs to build up practice hours in order to qualify.

Lots of students are unsure as they embark on a new course, that it’s fully for them. That is why there is also a certificate course. Upon completion of the certificate course, students are invited to apply for the honours degree and all their certificate work counts towards its achievement. A qualification from Coventry University is recognised both within the EU and outside the EU.

The counselling courses are all designed so that a student can hold down a job and find time to attend workshops and study.

Graduates from Cork Counselling Services have gone on to hold responsible positions in state services (such as HSE, Tusla, primary care centres and schools etc.) in smaller organisations (such as sexual violence centres, cancer care centres etc.) and in private practice.

See corkcounsellingservices.ie for more details.