Finding a placement
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Finding a placement is necessary if you’re training to be a counsellor or counselling psychologist. You move away from skills practice with your peers and develop these skills further by working directly with clients.
It can be challenging to find a suitable placement, especially if there are few providers where you’re based or many trainees looking at the same placements. Some courses offer support with this or have partnerships with organisations that can provide placement spaces for which you can apply.
Unfortunately, in my experience, most placements are unpaid. People can have mixed feelings about this, especially as they develop their clinical practice. Some placements may be able to provide other things, such as travel expenses, and may cover some or all supervision costs. Anything helps, especially when you’re self-funding your qualification.
I considered some points throughout my placement experience as a counsellor and counselling psychologist. This might be helpful if you’re looking for your first placement or reflecting on your development for your next placement.
Course requirements:
Check your course guidelines about specific criteria that you need to meet. These might include whether placements are in-person or remote/online, how many hours are required, types of therapy such as person-centred therapy, whether clients are adults or children, and the availability of support staff while on placement. You may need to complete a minimum number of placements; in the doctorate, I needed to have completed a minimum of three by the end of the course.
Personal/professional development:
What do you want to do when you’re qualified?
Is there a particular area or client group you’d like to work in or specialise in? This could be something like trauma, long-term health conditions or bereavement. This can be helpful to think of when looking for a placement. If you’re starting as a new trainee, you might not be able to go directly to your desired area. Sometimes, placements require you to have certain experience or have completed your first year or stage of training. You can still develop the necessary skills in other settings and add to your therapeutic work experience.
Are there additional requirements for the placement site you need to fulfil?
This could include attendance at group supervision, the minimum number of required hours or clients, team meetings, or other commitments you may need to agree to. You need to weigh this up against your realistic available time. Consider whether this is something you will find helpful and have the time to commit to, especially if some things happen outside of regular placement days.
What support is there for you?
Placement providers should provide some support to their trainees and staff, such as an available person to discuss if there is a safeguarding or risk issue and staff to support with administrative tasks. Some ensure there are breaks between clients for notes or may even provide monthly line supervision to check how you’re getting on in placement.
What will be provided for you regarding supervision?
Trainees usually pay supervision fees in most circumstances. However, some placements may provide clinical supervision internally or cover some or all external supervision costs. Clinical supervision is a necessary and helpful activity during training and beyond. It’s essential criteria from the BACP and HCPC, and there might be a ratio of supervision hours to client hours, such as 1hr of supervision for every 8 client hours.
How does the placement operate?
Do they let people come again if they miss appointments? Do cancellations count as sessions? Some organisations have procedures like this for various reasons, which you may or may not be comfortable with. There may be limits on the number of sessions available to clients, which can help you have different experiences with short or long-term therapy, open-ended therapy, and specific approaches permitted in placement. For example, some placements may provide CBT only.
Practical points:
Once you’re in placement, balancing this with other course commitments, clinical supervision, and personal life commitments such as caring responsibilities and work can be difficult. Sometimes, you may need to travel far for placements, which can also take time. You also need to ensure enough personal or self-care time. These can also factor into finding a suitable placement.
Can you do more than one placement (at one time)?
While you're training, spending time seeing how different organisations run and working with different client groups can benefit you. I started in one placement as a trainee counsellor for my first year, then added another one, which worked with a different client group and set sessions. In the doctorate, some placements overlapped with each other. This helped me reflect on my skills and what I needed to focus on developing, and I may not have got this from only one placement. There was also the practical side: if I only did one, I wouldn’t meet the required practice hours to pass the course.
Online therapy placements
We can’t ignore the move to online therapy since 2020, and online placements are now being provided. There may be some restrictions on this from your training provider, such as maximum allowed hours for online, to ensure there is some experience with in-person and online therapy experience. This can be helpful, especially if you’re not used to using online services, to gain experience in this area for future career prospects.
Private practice as a placement
Although I was qualified and had been working as a therapist before the doctorate, private practice hours were not allowed during the doctorate. The primary reasons were that this would mean not having a placement educator and not being allowed to be a data controller. Some independent or private organisations take paid trainees on but provide the necessary structure and support for course requirements.
I hope these points are useful to you. Please remember to speak with your coordinators and supervisors for support and to talk about your options. Good luck!