This course will give you the opportunity to:

• Develop practical counselling skills which can be used in a range of professional settings.
• Evaluate the theories underpinning the skills and the contexts in which they are used.
• Enhance your self-awareness and a capacity for ethical, empathic and reflective practice.
• Equip yourself with valuable communication skills, knowledge and experience transferrable to a range of workplace and helping situations.
• Develop your multicultural competence and understanding.
• Explore a wide variety of workplace contexts where counselling skills are used.
• Carry out research and develop a critical understanding of different therapeutic approaches.

Chester has a long-established national reputation for the provision of counselling education. We are linked to an exciting and cutting edge research community and the course is delivered by practitioners and researchers who draw on their own professional and academic expertise. We seek to ensure that our students have the best experience possible. The teaching is largely experiential with a strong practical component. This is enhanced by guest lecturers who bring in knowledge and skills from the wider professional and academic community.

The general principles of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy Ethical Framework (2018) help to inform our Counselling Skills course. The course provides you with a chance to gain highly developed embedded counselling skills to help others and can provide the foundations for further therapeutic training for those who wish to continue onto professional counsellor qualification routes. It is a practical, reflective and academic course which combines theory with social and contextual considerations. You will learn about a range of counselling and therapeutic approaches, developing your self awareness and ability to communicate with people in an ethical, empathic and professional way. It is in our view a unique chance to study for a multidisciplinary degree with a strong practical and employable component.