Course Information

Each course has an emphasis on personal development and equipping through training, class participation and sharing, demonstrations, small home-group activities, assignments and personal mentoring. Being competency-based, you will be trained in counselling skills and the effective use of a counselling and family therapy model.

During each of the first two years, you’ll attend four intensive teaching seminars that are scheduled 10 weeks apart. At the end of each 40 week period of study, you’ll attend a further day for handing in assignments, oral presentations, review and final assessments.

Assignments, which are completed between teaching seminars, include weekly journaling, small group counselling skills training reports, counselling skills assignments, written and book assignments, literature reviews and more.

You’ll attend two small home groups meetings each term for skills training and support.

In Year One, you’ll progressively work through a set of exercises with a learning partner. Training includes developing basic counselling skills and learning a general model of Christian counseling. In your second year, training includes a Christian model of family therapy and a supervised therapy practicum.

Year Three, the Vocational Graduate Certificate (VGC), is an ‘internship’ where you’ll develop your practical counselling expertise through integrating targeted professional development activities, resources gathering and personal clinical supervision into extensive practical counselling. You’ll accumulate a minimum of 200 hours of counselling and 50 hours of supervision. The VGC is accredited by the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA) under their Training Standard 2009.

You’ll be supported, monitored and personally mentored by tutors throughout the course.