Certificate of Counselling

Unit 1 – Establish and confirm the counselling relationship

• Structured counselling approach
• Analyse existing client information
• Legal and ethical considerations
• Transparent management of personal information
• Health and safety legislation
• Initial counselling session
• Engaging with clients
• Building rapport
• Active listening
• Effective questioning
• Communication techniques
• Paralanguage
• A structured approach to counselling
• A person-centred approach
• Establishing the helping relationship
• Provide information for clients
• Client rights and responsibilities
• The counselling process
• Professional boundaries
• Client expectations
• The Charter of Human Rights
• Clarifying expectations raised in promotional material
• Client anxieties
• Code of ethical conduct
• Client concerns
• Signs of anxiety
• Expectations and commitment
• Client issues
• Escalation
• Referrals to other agencies
• Eligibility criteria
• Example of referral process form
• Collaborative processes and strategies
• Confidentiality and privacy legislation
• Conflicting interests
• Relationship options and approaches with clients
• Counselling priorities and plans
• Counselling contracts
• Informed consent
• Example of a counselling plan
• Records management

Unit 2 – Apply specialist interpersonal and counselling interview skills

• Counselling interview sequence
• Environmental / personal factors
• Cultural considerations
• Disabilities / impairments
• Client-counsellor relationship
• Counselling skills
• Person-centred approach
• Client-centred interactions
• Establish rapport
• Empathy, honesty and openness
• Conflict resolution
• Learning styles
• Communication styles and skills
• Key objectives
• The initial session
• Structured approach
• Specialised counselling skills
• Negotiation techniques
• Promoting self-advocacy / self-care
• Coping strategies
• Responding to distress or crisis
• Self-evaluation / self-awareness
• Professional development plan
• Action learning
• Networking / professional memberships

Unit 3 – Facilitate the counselling relationship and process

• Following the client’s story
• Encouraging client to tell their story
• Closed questions
• Legal and ethical considerations
• Equal opportunity
• Anti-discrimination legislation
• Mandatory reporting legislation
• Duty of care
• Client presenting and underlying issues
• Engaging with clients
• Situations requiring immediate action
• Suicide threats
• Conflicting interests
• Identify and prioritise concerns
• Reframing technique
• Recognising issues needing a referral
• Referral eligibility
• Referral types and processes
• Confidentiality and privacy
• Client ambivalence
• Strategies for overcoming uncertainty
• Code of ethical conduct
• Supporting clients to experience and process difficulties
• The stages of recovery
• Implementing interventions
• Supporting clients to identify and use strengths
• Active listening
• Exploring clients feelings (reflecting, clarifying and reviewing)
• Dealing with underlying issues
• Monitor the counselling process
• Disruptions to the counselling process
• Planning for change
• Action phase
• Addressing dilemmas
• Enabling clients to identify when counselling is ending
• Emotionally dependant clients
• Personal boundaries
• Professional boundaries
• Developing client plans
• Autonomy and compliance
• Unresolved issues
• Documenting and reporting
• Records management

Unit 4 – Apply learning theories in counselling

• Research learning theories
• Access current information
• Workplace polices
• Privacy principles
• Distilling key themes and messages
• Behaviorism
• Antecedent behaviour consequence (ABC)
• Punishment
• Ignoring the behaviour
• Reinforcement
• Cognitivism
• Current and future practice
• Record security
• Record retention
• Legal and ethical considerations
• Professional boundaries
• Behavioral outcomes
• Modelling influences
• Modelling or behavioral rehearsal
• Role playing
• Role modelling
• Analyse responses
• Responses to reinforcement
• Primary reinforcement
• Secondary reinforcement
• Environmental differences
• Dysfunctional environments
• Learning environments
• Socioeconomic barriers
• Attention deficit disorder (ADD)
• Formulate a program for change
• Achieving identified outcomes
• Client rights
• Identify practical goals
• Setting SMART goals
• Barriers to achieving outcomes
• Stimulus and response techniques
• Delayed reinforcement
• Aggressive behaviour
• Reviewing change programs
• Problem solving

Unit 5- Select and use counselling therapies

• Select counselling therapies
• Identify and prioritising client needs
• Establish desired changes
• Creative problem-solving techniques
• SMART goals
• Client’s developmental status
• Client’s response to change
• Piaget’s cognitive development (4 stages)
• Freud’s psychosexual stages of development (5 stages)
• Id, ego and superego
• Erickson’s psychosocial development (8 stages)
• Kohlberg’s moral development (3 stages)
• Physical and motor development
• Language
• Individual differences
• Consulting with clients carers, family or significant others
• Signs of co-existing mental health and AOD issues
• Background – dual diagnosis
• Substance abuse and dependence
• Alcohol dependence
• Symptoms of psychological problems or illness
• Normal and abnormal behaviour
• Drug use and psychological illness
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
• Person-centred therapy
• Behaviour therapy
• Benefits and limitations of therapy
• Gestalt therapy
• Solution focused therapy
• Developing a self-care plan
• Psychological, emotional, spiritual and relationship self-care
• Symptoms causes and effects of stress
• Stress diaries
• Managing re-traumatisation
• Arousal reduction strategies
• Managing vicarious trauma
• Positive self-care habits
• Emotional distancing
• The role of the counsellor
• Choosing a theory
• Personality theories
• Applying the Erikson, Freud and Maslow theory
• Providing information about counselling services
• Documenting therapy details
• Client rights and responsibilities
• The counselling process
• Professional boundaries
• Clarifying client expectations
• Client expectations
• Communicating details of therapies
• Environmental and personal factors
• Cultural issues
• Communication
• Principles and application of theories
• Building and establishing rapport
• Active and passive listening
• Effective questioning
• Reframing
• Paralanguage
• Personal space
• Effective communicators
• Changing client behaviour
• Goal setting
• Self-advocacy
• Practice coping strategies
• Mindfulness relaxation
• Integrative therapy
• Reinforcement approaches
• Behaviour management
• Aggressive behaviour
• Appropriate staff training
• High-level communication skills
• Empathy and sympathy
• Honesty and openness
• Elements of trust
• Conflict resolution
• Records management
• Confidentiality, legal and ethical considerations
• Duty of care
• Role modelling
• Clients requiring referrals and referral processes
• Evaluating use of techniques and theories
• Regular performance evaluations and appraisals
• Enhancing knowledge with emerging trends
• Training and action learning
• Self-development plans
• Development and implementing goals
• Conferences and networking
• Professional memberships
• Evaluation of current trends