Placement Guidance for Tutors, Learners and Placement Providers

Introduction

The following is taken from the AIM website.

 

Learners of AIM Awards courses are attending high quality counselling courses at an AIM Awards approved centre and have reached a stage in their development where both AIM Awards and course Tutors believe that they are ready to begin to work with live clients. The learners will have already studied and achieved a good grounding in counselling skills and counselling theory, and have acquired a good understanding of ethical practice. Learners are required to reflect on their practice and abide by a code of ethics and practice, e.g. the BACP Ethical Framework or National Counselling Society Code of Ethics.

 

The opportunity for learners to gain experience of live counselling work is essential if theyare to develop their competences and progress into the challenging world of professional counselling.

 

Placements referring clients to AIM Awards learners will make an important and valuable contribution to the quality of training in the counselling sector and will be helping AIM Awards to raise the skill levels of the next generation of counsellors.

 

 

Guidance for Considering a Placement involving Children

AIM Awards recognise that learners undertaking placements may wish to work with children, either because of a particular interest in this area of counselling or because of limited placements available locally. AIM Awards strongly recommend that if a learner wishes to work in a placement where they will be counselling children they should at least have achieved or be working towards achieving the relevant optional unit Approaches to Counselling Children and Young People, or have other relevant qualifications. This recommendation is more relaxed in regard to learners who already work with children in a welfare role who would already have sufficient experience and knowledge of particular requirements surrounding the counselling of children.

 

If a placement which involves counselling with children also provides induction training and is willing to accept a relatively inexperienced learner, then this could be supported also. Any learner who wishes to be in placement working with children or vulnerable adults, will need to have a current Disclosure and Barring Service check (DBS). Many placement providers will require learners to hold a current DBS check irrespective of their client group.

 

Placement Requirements

AIM Awards learners are required to accept and abide by the house rules of any counselling agency they may be placed with. In addition, AIM Awards specifies the following placement
criteria guidance for centres and learners:

  1. That the counselling service works to a recognised code of practice for counselling, e.g.The BACP Ethical Framework, or a similarly valid code of conduct.
  2. The counselling service assesses its clients to ensure that, as far as it is reasonable to do so, they are safe for Level 4 learner counsellors to work with before referring them to a learner.
  3. Learner counsellors must have formal arrangements in place for counselling supervision, to cover all client work, prior to starting work with clients. Centres should note that individual registration and/or accreditation by professional bodies, e.g. BACP, NCS may have different requirements and are advised to alert learners to these requirements via the websites of the respective organisations.
  4. AIM Awards recognises that, at the beginning, practice demands a lot of the new counsellor. Centres may wish to consider a ratio of one hour of supervision per four hours of client work in the early stages of a placement. AIM Awards would, however, strongly recommend that the ratio of supervision to client work does not exceed one hour of supervision to eight hours of client work. However, we will support any particular requirements of the placement provider.
  5. All client work must take place in an appropriate setting and be one-to-one, not group work.
  6. The clients that are referred to AIM Awards learners must be real clients, e.g. people genuinely seeking help from a counsellor (specifically, they must not be other learners on counsellor training programmes).
  7. The counselling is subject to an appropriate counselling contract.
  8. If asked, clients must be told that the counsellor is in training.
  9. Someone in the organisation must take a line management responsibility for the learner i.e. to ensure that the learner is aware of health and safety regulations in the setting and discuss how appointment arrangements, cancellations and room availability will be managed.
  10. It is recommended that learners submit Supervisor’s reports approximately three months into the placement and again at the end. These reports will enable Tutors to monitor the learners’ progress and address any areas for development. A template for this is included within the Assessment Pack in Appendix 5.