Why do we offer Counselling Placements?
Why do we offer Counselling Placements?
Every year, around 1000 skilled counsellors and therapists take up a placement with Place2Be.
Most of our Counsellors on Placement are working towards a diploma or equivalent qualification. Over half of our current school-based staff began their journey as child therapists on placement with Place2Be.
You must complete a supervised placement to become a qualified counsellor or therapist in the UK. Read about qualifying on the BACP website.
Place2Be’s Counselling Placements are an opportunity for skilled students – who are training at Level 4 or above in England and Wales or Level 9-11 in Scotland – to gain clinical experience. Read about our placements.
In addition to their many hours of training, they must complete our rigorous induction and interview process.
Alongside our mental health professionals, Counsellors on Placement are vital to our in-school services. Read about our in-school services.
As a charity, we are hugely grateful to them for dedicating their time to children and young people.
The benefits
Our Counsellors on Placement:
- Gain therapeutic experience in a school setting to take the next step in their careers.
- Receive free same-day supervision from our experienced mental health professionals, which helps them to reflect on their practice and work effectively, safely and ethically.
- Have access to a dedicated learning hub with expert training materials and resources and a community of peers.
- Have access to free clinical workshops on topics from attachment theory to diversity.
- Have the opportunity to gain a specialist qualification in working with children alongside their placement, if they have trained or are training to work with adults.
- Many of our alumni tell us that their placement helped them get paid clinical work. Over half of our current clinical staff started their Place2Be careers on placement.
Building the mental health workforce
School leaders tell us that they find it difficult to get professional support for pupils' wellbeing.
Place2Be is committed to building a workforce of skilled and experienced mental health professionals to ensure schools can access high-quality mental health services. In the past year, we trained 1,450 people through our placements programme.
Read about our qualifications.
Counselling Placements - FAQs
Yes. We proudly employ over 400 counsellors, therapists, and clinically trained staff. This makes us one of the largest UK employers of mental health professionals outside the NHS.
Both. Our frontline school staff deliver various mental health services, including:
- one-to-one counselling
- group work
- whole class work
- support sessions for parents, carers and school staff.
Sometimes, our qualified staff supervise Counsellors on Placement. These counsellors commit their time to gaining clinical experience working with children and young people as a requirement of their training, aligning with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) standards. The placement is in a school one day per week during term time.
No. Place2Be is a charity and does not make any profit. Schools contribute monetarily to our services, and we rely on voluntary income to make up the shortfall to keep the costs for schools as low as possible. We also incur the costs associated with extensive training and free supervision provided by highly qualified clinicians as part of our placements.
In addition to all the onsite mental health support our school-based staff provide, our partner schools also benefit from a range of extra services, including:
- access to our specialist safeguarding team
- access to our educational psychologists
- training
- continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities.
Employees of Place2Be provide all this support.
Our audited accounts are publicly available on our website: Download our 2024 accounts.
As a charity, we offer placements as part of our commitment to building a mental health workforce that supports children and young people. The quality of Place2Be’s training offer and supervision structure ensures mutual benefit to both the charity and the Counsellor on Placement.
We work closely with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and the UK Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) to ensure that our placement programmes are relevant and valued by the counselling profession.
We want our counselling training courses to be as accessible as possible. That’s why we provide bursary funding for four of our courses:
- Introduction to Child Counselling Skills (Level 2 Award)
- Intermediate Child Counselling Skills (Level 3 Certificate)
- Level 4 Diploma in School-Based Child Counselling
- Postgraduate Diploma in Counselling Children in Schools.
You must meet certain criteria to apply for a bursary. You can find out more by reading our bursaries on our information on our Bursary Pathway page.
No. Our Mental Health Practitioner roles deliver one-to-one counselling and other mental health support in school (see above). They do not have any supervisory responsibilities. Schools that opt for this model do not have access to Counsellors on Placement. Please visit our careers page to find out more.
